Vampire and Prey
by lookimacloud
Summary: Hermione does not like how vampires live. Things are going to have to change. Draco might not approve, but oh well, it was his choice to make her his Queen...Payback's a B!tch. DHr/BG
1. Chapter 1

**Vampire and Prey**

Chapter One

_The pain was unbearable. Hermione screamed and fought against the hands on her_

_shoulders. What was happening to her? Shifting colors swirled around her head…a voice_

_demanding something in her ear. Who was it? What did they want? Why couldn't she_

_move?_

_It was a white room. The faces came in a blur. Voices, so many voices. Beeping_

Hermione woke in chills. That was a strange dream. She'd been feeling strange for the past few days. The dream always started with the pain, then the room. What room had she been in? Shaking the dream off, Hermione stretched her body. The sheets felt wonderful and warm against her skin. Dosing, she thought of Draco.

Today was their Anniversary. She'd gone out the other day with her friend Ginny to pick out the perfect gift. Hermione smiled.

Draco would love her gift. She just knew it. She'd spent extra long in wrapping it too. Draco seemed to have extremely heightened senses. He could tell if the most random object was somehow out of place. They even spent a whole afternoon arguing over where the door man should stand. After pointing out that the poor man had on two different black shoe laces, Draco had stated that the man should be fired from his job. Not only was he wearing two different laces, but he was also standing on the wrong side of the door.

That, was a fun argument.

Once, Draco had even rearranged her whole kitchen to make it more functional. The toaster does not belong in the oven, she recalled him saying. He seemed to take offense that she used the baker as storage. Well, when one lived in as small of an apartment as she did, one must find places to put things.

Hermione didn't mind the toaster in the oven because she never used either. Cooking, was never something she attempted.

Which was another reason tonight was so very important. Hermione was going to cook Draco a meal for the first time. Her present, not a wrapping paper seem out of place, would be placed next to his plate.

Hermione eased her contented body from the bed, and went to shower. The meal would be horrendous she knew, but she wanted to show Draco how much she loved him. She figured, if she could live with his observations, then he could live with her cooking.

Ginny came over a little past two to check on her progress. "Oh Hermione that is a beautiful cake. You made that?" she asked sounding as ridiculous as her question was.

Ginny too, knew that Hermione couldn't cook. Hermione was starting to regret her surprise dinner. She had just finished cleaning the apartment, which wasn't all that bad to begin with, she spent an hour on the phone with Draco, and now she'd started to cook. She didn't even have the desert made yet and the dishes were already piling up.

Hermione had to admit to herself, and now even to Ginny, that making desert was harder than it looked.

"I just hope it tastes as beautiful. I got it from the bakery last night just in case I ran out of patience cooking today. It's a good thing too. I'm going to have to clean this kitchen double time when I'm done and guess who's going to help me…it won't be Draco."

Hermione glanced at Ginny from the corner of her eye to see her reaction. If anything, Ginny hated cleaning as much as Hermione hated cooking. Ginny didn't disappoint.

"It's your fault that you don't know that flour goes in the bowl Hermione, not mine." she glared.

"But you want me to be pretty for Draco don't you? It's been one year today. I can't wait until he comes. But I won't have time to clean my kitchen and myself before he gets here. I don't know which would be worse, a dirty me, or a white kitchen."

"Oh all right, fine." she grumbled, "But you owe me big."

"Deal." Hermione pulled the milk from the fridge and poored a glass for herself and Ginny. "I'm really happy Gin."

"Yes I know." Ginny then asked with a hint of a smile, "What are you doing tonight? You know, after you taste the road kill?"

Hermione didn't take offense. She already had Chinese on speed dial just in case. "I don't know. Draco said that he had a surprise for me. He said that it was time, whatever that means."

"What do you think he means by it?"

"Don't know. I will have to find out. I think he might finally ask me to marry him. Can you believe it? Hermione Malfoy." Hermione twirled in a circle with milk sloshing over the rim of her glass.

"Hermione you are really horrible with food of all sorts." Ginny snatched the glass away and growled, "You will not take advantage of my kindness. Now get your butt cooking. I don't want to hear another word until you stir something."

Hermione laughed, and turned to start her water boiling.

"Are you sure that's what you want?" Ginny asked after a pause. "I mean, to marry Draco. He is a bit odd. Is he the one you want to marry?"

"It's the fact that he loves me for me that I love the most about him." Hermione replied, stirring her pot of steaming water. "He would never try to change me and he has never lied to me. He is different from most men. I really love him Gin and would follow him to the ends of the earth. Sure he is odd. His favorite food is raw meat for goodness sake. But I still love him. Can I stop stirring my empty water now and still talk to you?"

Ginny ignored her. Hermione stopped stirring and smiled again. Her friend was so easy to bait.

"But every time I see him he is covered in that black cloak. I never see him out doors with his face in the sun, and he is always out on business. You love the out doors. You love the beach and the heat. Can you honestly tell me that this guy is right for you? I don't want to burst your happiness bubble, I just don't want you hurt."

Hermione thought for a minute. It was sweet of her friend to care so much. Hermione didn't really have a good track record with guys. She hadn't dated much. Two boyfriends in the past that each lasted two months before breaking up with her. Draco was different though. He wasn't very social true, but he was perfect the way he was. He didn't like to go out to parties and get drunk like her last boyfriends. He didn't sleep with her and then leave for the night like they did either. Draco had been nothing but good to her. He listened to her, cared for her… He was perfect.

"Draco is everything I want in a man. We are so similar. Sometimes at night when I read on the couch, he plops down right beside me with a book of his own. Most couples watch the telly on the couch, but with us, we just click. Sometimes, I fall asleep with my head in his lap, and a book in mine. I love him and what we have together."

"I know you do Sweety. I have seen you two when you think that the other isn't looking. It is fascinating to watch the change that comes over his face when you enter the room. It's like you are the only person he has ever cared about. I am happy for you. I just didn't want you to not be sure."

Ginny hadn't thought their relationship would go this far. Admittedly, she did like Draco, and admittedly, she did like giving him a hard time. But the feeling was mutual.

She'd thought that Hermione was just going through a faze after her break up with Dan. Draco was supposed to be the rebound guy. Dan had hurt Hermione, and Hermione was using Draco as a distraction. Dan had also been trying to get back together with Hermione for over a year now. Draco was good for her. Ginny wished that their verbal sparing wouldn't go away though once Hermione married him. Draco was the only man she knew who could give as good as he got, and Ginny would be disappointed if she couldn't sharpen her tongue on him anymore. Ginny hoped that this man would keep her friend happy.

….

Blood, Blood. He needed blood. When would he be able to kill the woman of his thoughts, the human he wanted to marry. How he longed to stick his teeth into that smooth neck. She couldn't know until they marry. She would run from him if she knew. He had to keep his secret just a little longer.

Once Hermione was satisfied that they were man and wife, then and only then, would Draco allow himself to take her. He would kill her. He would make her his own and marry her by his own laws. He would then kill his father, as was tradition, and rule his kingdom. Nothing could go wrong. His Queen would give him the heir he needed. He would raise his son to be a better Prince than he, and one day, his son would be the ruler of the dynasty.

Draco had his goals set in blood, theoretical of course. He needed to marry her. Once she was a vampire, he would be satisfied that she would never escape him.

Draco stood outside Hermione's apartment for what he knew would be the last time. He widened his smile. Tonight was the night. He rang the bell.

…...

The doorbell rang at half past 8:00. Draco!

Hermione rushed to open the door. Lord but he was gorgeous. Draco was dressed in his habitual black suit, hair slicked back. It was nothing unusual or special. He took the same time and care in his appearance as he always did.

"Draco." Hermione whispered a bit breathless. She threw her arms around him in a tight hug.

"Happy Anniversary, Baby." He held out a tiny box to her. Hermione took the little blue box from his oversized hand and grinned at the tiny royal blue ribbon that he'd tied around it. Hermione, at that moment, didn't even care what was inside. She would treasure the gift as it was. She could just picturing Draco cursing the ribbon for not tying in perfectly proportionate loops and redoing it several times. The thought brought tears to her eyes.

Draco then swept her into his arms. His endless strength always surprised Hermione. The man could lift anything. "I made you dinner and a cake." She sighed against his neck.

"You made dinner and a cake? Baby you shouldn't have, really. Are you sure we won't die?"

"Beast," Hermione slapped her hand against his chest to show her irritation. "Well, I tried to make the cake. It didn't work out. I bought the cake. But the dinner was all me and I'm not going to budge until you eat every bit of it. Even if we are both sick all night."

Draco concentrated on the feel of her against his body. Her eyes were closed and her soft breathing on his neck was turning him insane. He carried his Queen to the sofa and sat her down. Draco stared at the woman who so lovingly stared at him. Her big brown eyes took his breath away. He would not allow himself to feel this way. She was just a woman, he censured. Just his Queen.

Draco would have to teach Hermione that matters of the heart should stay in the heart or cease to exist. He would, he swore, after she was his. He said instead, "Hermione, I thank you for the dinner. After we eat I would like to take you to the place where my father had once taken my mother, and I want you to hold this for when we get there." He placed his hand over hers on the blue velvet box.

Hermione had no such restrictions. She ran over to the table to get the gift she'd purchased for him. "Open it," she demanded. "Open it now before we eat."

Draco smiled down at the gift. Draco noticed the remarkable improvement in the wrapping of this gift, compaired to the last she'd given him. Hermione had all the seems lined up and the paper was pulled tightly across the package as it should. He recalled how she'd wrapped his birthday gift with a grimace. The poor thing was taped together with artist tape and had a flowered card attached to it that read,

_Roses are red, violates are blue, today is your birthday, I wish it were mine too,_

_Love,_

_Hermione_

She'd written the card herself, but clearly his girl had never been much of a gift giver. The paper on his current present had snoopy on it and the bow was a bright pink color that clashed with the over-all red wrapping. It was perfect.

Draco tore at the wrapping. Hermione plopped down beside him and watched. Her gift was priceless.

"Do you like it? You talk about vampires all the time but you don't have any vampire movies at your apartment. I just thought that maybe it was time you had the best there was to start your collection."

Draco was speechless. How do you tell a woman that Bram Stoker's Dracula was all a lie, and prove it without things getting way out of hand?

You don't.

"Thank you Hermione. Thank you very much for this gift. It means a lot to me that you are okay with my obsession over vampire myths.

Hermione just smiled. She kissed him soundly, then bounced off the sofa to get her masterpiece.

They ate the steak in peace, Draco trying very hard to hide his disgust for the cooked meat. Hermione still noticed his slight grimace. "I never said I was a cook Draco. That is as rare as I could make it without it being burnt. Would you like mine? It's charred through?"

"No, no," Draco waved her words away, wondering how she could have screwed up rare meat. "Its not that." he assued, "It's just that, well, don't you ever just feel like flying?"

"What?" Hermione laughed.

"Flying," he repeated. "In this world of crowded humans rushing to throw one another out of their way? It is disgusting. We can change all that by flying. At least until a year at most."

"Draco. What are you talking about? You always surprise me."

Draco was suddenly serious. "I mean it. I wish to fly among all humans and then get rid of them and have only enough to keep the population from dieing."

"Draco?" Hermione asked. "Is something wrong? Did something happen at work today?"

"No. I was just dreaming of a better world."

"Yes. I know how you feel. I would love to get rid of my boss. I would love to be the boss."

Draco's eyes lit up, a shining silver. "Really? And how should you like him?" He asked, as though her fantasy could become a reality. Draco loved talking about the people she hated at work. Somehow, he made it seem like with him, she would never have to worry about people like her coworkers again. Sometimes, somehow, Hermione believed that to be true. Somehow, as she told him her issues, Draco made her feel like she would not always be on the receiving end of retail.

"On a platter? Or a stick?" Draco added.

Hermione, all serious, stated, "A platter, totally naked with an apple in his mouth, only to be served to me and nobody else. And if he doesn't give me what I want then I will put him in the pig pen where he belongs." She vowed, laughing at the image.

Draco grinned at her mirth. It amused him to know that she just did not realize the power she would wield as his Queen. She just did not know that if she wished it, it would happen. Draco couldn't wait.

"Come," he said. "I want to show you what is in that box that you have yet to really 'notice.'" Draco pulled her from her chair and they left the apartment.

He drove Hermione down to the bridge that his father told him about. It was at this very bridge, that his father had proposed to his mother. And now, it was going to be the very bridge that Draco proposed to Hermione at.

"This is beautiful Draco." Hermione grasped his hand and closed her eyes. Lifting her face to the night. Draco did not know how much more angelic his Queen could get. She had actually sniffed the air. He didn't think he'd ever seen anyone sniff the air before.

Knowing his chances with her as a human were limited, Draco whisked Hermione against his side with his right arm, and twirled her around on the bridge. Hermione's laugh was rich and gay. Draco set her on her feet in front of him and held out the gift he got her.

He opened the box in his hand, and took out the vintage white gold ring. He held it out for her to see.

Hermione was in shock. She had expected Draco to ask her to marry him, but she hadn't really known what she would feel. She was elated and nervous. The ring was beautiful. It held a square cut diamond with tulip shaped V sides. He had gotten it perfect.

Hermione knew Draco was waiting for a reaction. He held the ring out to her as if he wanted her to take it from him. Hermione was afraid to move less it was a dream. He had even managed to get her jaw to drop. Realizing this, Hermione snapped her mouth closed and looked into his eyes.

Draco caught a hold of her hand and slid the ring into place on her finger. He then felt at ease. Now that the ring was there, she couldn't be parted from him. The ring recognized his Queen in her and wouldn't come off as long as she was human. It would bind her to him as his slave, should he so choose, until she became his Queen. She would still be his slave no matter what, but at least then she could take the ring off. "Marry me?" he more demanded than really asked.

* * *

_Author's Note: I hope you like my story. Please review._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Hermione didn't mind at all that Draco had all but ordered her to marry him, but she was just coming around from her initial shock, when Draco placed the beautiful band on her finger. "Oh Draco, I will marry you. I love you." She stared down at his 'gift' and then kissed him deeply. But not as deeply as Draco wished she would, wished she _could_.

Draco could make her, but he wanted to wait until they could be bound forever. If Hermione knew what he had planned for her, then she wouldn't come willingly. He didn't want to take her by force, even though he could do anything he wanted with her now. She could no longer defy him, not that she ever had.

"Come, let's get married now." He said, 'on my real birthday,' he thought. "On our Anniversary. It could be no better. On this night I have my inheritance given to me and now all I need is my woman to exercise it."

"What do you mean, your inheritance? Draco what are you keeping from me?"

"I want you Hermione." he said, ignoring her question. "I want to kiss you deeply. I want to be your husband. I want to be a father, to see you big with my child. To have him to raise. I promise you Hermione, that you will never, ever, be taken advantage of again. People will respect you because you will be my wife." How he longed to tell her what it was really going to be like. How he was going to kill her and be her King. How he was going to get her pregnant and she was going to give him a son. How she was going to stand by his side while he ruled his Kingdom and wiped out his cousin's clan.

"Draco," she exclaimed, "Tonight?" Hermione paused for almost a minute. Draco could see the expressions float across her face. Happiness, weariness, excitement. Then, as if she had just made the biggest decision of her life, she leaned over the bridge and shouted to the deserted waters, "I am going to marry this man and nothing is going to stop me." Draco smiled, realizing that nothing was going to stop him either.

"Hermione, I want you to be my wife as soon as can be. I want to start our life together. I want you. Marry me now. We have all we need tonight to marry."

"Birth certificates and all?" she asked surprised.

"Yes." he answered. "For the best Anniversary we could ever have, let us do this. Give me your world; your life."

"Okay." She conceded.

Draco kissed her. He was glad that she agreed. Not that an agreement was necessary, she would have married him tonight anyway, but it felt good to have it. He was a little too excited however.

"Owe!" Hermione pulled back from his mouth but stayed in the circle of his arms. "You bit my tongue a little bit Draco. It's nothing." she hurried on when she saw what she took for concern.

Draco was far from concerned. He wished he could kiss her deeply without piercing her tongue. She would have to die first, he reminded himself. She was not a vampire yet.

Hermione then learned, as it turned out, that Draco had tickets to Vegas that night. She was literally swept off her feet. She and Draco were married four hours later. The wedding was a small ceremony with Elvis as the reverend. It wasn't Hermione's dream wedding, but she was glad that she was finally married to Draco.

It felt good to be spontaneous for a change. Hermione realized she had probably taken spontaneity a bit to the extreme, but she couldn't care. She still fully intended to plan a small ceremony when they got home. She wanted the white dress and flowers. She wanted Ginny as her Bridesmaid. She would have to call Ginny sometime later and tell her the news. Hermione smiled at the knowledge that Ginny would once again have to clean up her kitchen for her.

Draco carried her off to their $500.00 a night hotel room. He was grinning like he'd just secured something very precious to him. Hermione was what was so precious. She recognized that look. It was the look he gave her when he thought she wasn't looking. It was the look of someone completely satisfied with life and who they share it with. Hermione lay her head on his shoulder, and smiled too. She was a married woman.

Draco had never been as satisfied with his accomplishments. Tonight he had not only secured his Queen, but he was also married to her by human laws too. Soon, she would be his bonded mate. She would never leave him. Somehow, that made Draco realize he had been waiting for that moment since he'd introduced himself to her. He had been waiting for her disgust and fear of him. And now he wouldn't have to worry about it again. She couldn't go anywhere.

Draco carried Hermione over the threshold and dropped her on the bed. "You get yourself comfortable wife." He said smiling. "I will be right back."

"Okay." Hermione purred, snuggling down in the bed. "I will wait up for you. Don't be too long or I might just have to find some chocolate as a replacement."

"That won't be necessary. Believe me when I say that there is nothing that I would rather do than to make you my own."

"I thought you had already done that Draco?" she joked.

"You just wait." he answered, bringing a chuckle from her.

Draco walked into the bathroom and turned on the water to the bathtub. He shouted for Hermione to stay where she was and wait for her surprise. He then leaped out the window. Draco arrived in Paris, France a scant two minutes later.

"Father." He called when he entered the secluded castle. "It is done."

Draco's father came out of the shadows, his wife at his side. "Is she a vampire?" he asked quietly.

"No. She is not one yet but she wears the ring. She will not get away no matter what. She is my wife as the humans call it. She is obligated to do my will."

"Turn her tonight. Then bring her home to feast upon the one of her choice. Do you have the human?"

"That is what I came for. I need you to get her boss here. He is to be on a silver platter with an apple in his mouth. She wishes him naked, he will not be. He is to be our meal. She will become my Queen by early tomorrow. Father, you will then pass on."

"Yes." his father said. "Then you and your mother will teach this human what her duty is. My time here is nearly done."

Draco nodded to his father and left. The water was almost half filled when he arrived at the suit.

"Draco? Aren't you going to come and warm me up?" Hermione called to him.

"Yes." he hissed under his breath. Draco retracted his fangs, walked out of the shadowed room, and over to the bed.

Blood, oh yes blood. He would have her blood soon. Yes, very soon now.

Draco leaned into her. Hermione welcomed him with open arms. "Kiss me Draco." She whispered.

He kissed her, first on the lips lightly, then across her chin. Hermione shivered in anticipation. Draco did too.

He moved from the column of her throat, to that of the side of her neck. This was it. She would be his forever. Draco breathed in the scent of her skin; he nuzzled her hair with his head. No more, he thought. No more wait. No more wooing. No more daylight. No more dry food. It was the end of his suffering.

Draco hissed his approval and bent to her neck. "Hermione," he hissed. "Watch me Baby. This is the beginning of your death."

Hermione opened her eyes and stared at her husband just before he sank his teeth into her neck. She screamed. Draco was biting her? Why? Oh God it hurt. "Draco?" she cried softly when he lifted his head. "What was that for? My neck hurts now. I..."

Her body began to shake. Her face had gone stark white. Draco stood and pulled a chair over to the bed. He sat and watched her. The deed was done. Her blood was delicious; just the thing he needed. Draco felt alive and relaxed. He sprawled his legs out before him. Hermione was dieing.

She was screaming now, her body still shivering. Blood was leaking down her mouth. "Draco." She cried out. "What is happening? Help me, please…" She gasped, then her tremors grew worse.

"You're mine now." He drawled. Hermione stared with wide eyes, glazed over with pain. "When you finish I will take you to my castle. Then we will be bonded to one another. You will be too weak to do anything to stop it. Just obey me and you will be fine, my Queen."

Hermione passed out. Either from the pain or the shock it neither mattered, nor did Draco care. He picked her limp form up in his arms. He then stared down into her face. The blood had vanished from her mouth. She was now a vampire. She wouldn't stir until he'd taken her to her maids. Once they fed her a reviving potion, she would be back with him. Draco jumped out of the window into the air. She felt wonderful in his arms. Oh but she had been sweet.

The wind was billowing threw his hair and over his coat. The force of it pushed Hermione hard against him. Now all she had to do was marry him by his laws. Then all would be well. He had to bond before day break. He had to get home. Looking at the moon, Draco saw that he had two hours to get the deed done.

"Father." Draco shouted about the shadows. "Mandala." he shouted again. The maid materialized before him. Draco placed Hermione into the bulky woman's arms. "This is going to be my Queen. Take her to my quarters and ready her for the ceremony." Draco watched as the woman glided away. More appropriately, he couldn't stop watching Hermione.

His father appeared then. "It is done?" he asked.

"Yes." Draco answered. "It is done. We will bond before sun up."

"Good. Now I am going to go spend the rest of my time with your mother. She greaves for me."

…..

Draco had the ballroom of the mansion readied for the Bonding ceremony before Hermione awoke from her death. He even had Richard Rawlings; Hermione's former boss, placed on a platter on the back table, all set as his Queen's chosen sacrifice. Vampire Lords by the many came to witness the bonding of their Prince and his Prey. All that was missing from the picture now was their future King's Queen, and his parents.

When Draco summoned them, the King and Queen promptly walked side by side through the ceremonial path that ended their bonding, and honored the soon to be former King's rule. As the King and Queen sat in their chairs for the last time, Draco called for his bonding mate to present herself.

The servants quickly escorted an out of sorts Hermione forward. She was dressed in all black from shoulder to toe and was too stunned by her surroundings to do much of anything but stare. "Draco?" She asked when she looked up at him. "Where are we? What are we doing here? Draco I feel sick. Can someone tell me who all of these people are? Why is it so dark in here? Is this still my dream? I don't see the white walls. Where are the white walls? Draco…"

Hermione stopped talking when she saw the look in Draco's eyes. He seemed so emotionless now. Like he could feel nothing. What had happened to her new husband? Was he having second thoughts? Was he really her husband now or had she really not woken up from her dream yet? If that were so, where were all the colors? Why weren't there white walls? There are always white walls…

"Bring forth the sacrifice." Draco shouted into the silent room.

Hermione watched in a daze as a silver platter was carried to them from the back of the big room. They had to be the center of attention. Who were these people? Why did she feel so weak? All she could do to stand up straight was lean on Draco who held her in the circle of one of his arms facing the crowd. Hermione saw then what was on the platter, Mr. Rawlings! How did he get here in this strange place? Was her work playing a joke on her? She saw then, the haunted look in her boss' eyes, and tried to go to him. She didn't get past two wobbly steps before Draco hulled her back up to his front.

"Draco, what's going on?' she asked again.

This time he answered her. "We have to go through a little ceremony right now in order for me to get my inheritance." he whispered in her ear.

"Oh." Hermione accepted that answer readily. Draco knew she still was not thinking clearly enough to understand what he had told her because she didn't ask any more questions.

As soon as the giant tray was laid down on the table in front of them, Draco's parents rose from their chairs and took their positions on either side of Hermione. Draco let her go and backed away. He then motioned for them to begin.

Both the King and the Queen leaned forward and pierced either side of Hermione's neck with their vampire's fangs. She just stared at Draco, stupefied. She could feel no pain from the biting and would never again, as she had already died by Draco's bite. But Draco knew she felt the pressure of their deadly kisses. He knew she didn't yet understand.

These piercings were yet another tradition of the Vampire Bonding ceremony. Both the parents of the Prince had to bite his chosen Queen as a show of their acceptance. This was to acknowledge her publicly as their son's Queen. The bite itself made sure that part of the King and Queen were placed into the future heir of the throne, the child that Hermione would start to carry as soon as it was fertilized, the insured egg that had been there since the very moment Draco had placed his bonding ring on her finger. This child, Hermione could no longer prevent having, now that she wore the ring.

When the biting ended his parents backed away from Hermione, leaving her standing alone. She shot a quick glance over at them and then placed her hands around her neck as if to ward everyone away. Draco motioned for her to come to him and when she didn't do as he'd requested he looked down at the ring on his own finger and kissed it. Hermione immediately came forward.

That was the ring's power. All Draco had to do from now on was give an order and kiss his ring. He then could have his Queen do anything he wished, even if it was not of her own free will. Draco's father had used this ring's power many a time on his 'wife' when she had irritated him. Now it was Draco's turn.

When Hermione stood before him, Draco took hold of her hand, noticing it was as cold as ice and would remain so until she'd had her first meal. He held their hands up above their heads. There was only one thing left for her to do. Draco's personal servant came forward with a sash and tied Draco and Hermione's wrists together. Draco then took his Queen forward and motioned for her to have the first bite of her human sacrifice.

Hermione looked down at her boss. Whatever was going on she didn't like it. She felt like she was going through hell. Something was wrong with her. The last thing she could remember were her flashbacks through her life and the way Draco had just sat in that chair, wherever they were at the time, and watched her with his assessing gaze while she suffered a great pain that she couldn't now place. And for some beguiling reason, Draco now wanted her to do something with her boss even though he knew she could only move her one hand. Where was her other one? Why couldn't she move it? What did he want her to do? What was going on?

Draco saw the look on Hermione's face when she glanced up at him and then back down at the human. He realized that she wasn't deliberately defying him, as he'd first suspected she was. She was just standing there like she was being forced to eat her own cooked meet. Draco whispered an order into the ring and kissed it. Hermione instantly bent her head and bit into her boss' neck. The poor human screamed through his mouth's binding. Draco savored those screams that meant that Hermione was now officially his Queen. He couldn't wait to get her alone where he could sire that child.

Unfortunately, this now meant that he had to kill his father. This tradition of killing Kings along the passing of the throne started when one vampire, Draco's great, great grandfather, had tried to take over the throne after his heir married. From then on it became a law, that on the Prince's 250th birthday, he would marry, bond, and then kill his father.

There were only three ways to kill a vampire, and that was by not eating, which was reserved as due death for prisoners set in the dungeon, by going through childbirth, or how he was going to kill his father tonight, with the ancient sword of Zandoffmoochenie, the greatest vampire King who ever ruled.

Draco watched his mother and father kiss for the last time as he sent her away to not witness his death. His father then took the sword, which was forever tied at his side for safekeeping, and placed it into his son's outstretched hand. He stood back and waited. The sword was now the new King's. Draco held the black, ruby encrusted sword and studied its beauty for a full two minutes while he came to term about what he had to do. He then looked at his father and hugged him one last time. With that done and sorrow in his eyes, Draco thrust the all-powerful sword into his father's midsection and watched as his father disappeared into a black substance that would rest forever on the sword's blade, now a part of its very coloring.

* * *

_Author's Note: As always, please review_

_Thank you reviewers for Chapter One:_

moon05

Shorty653

TwinsConspiracy


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Draco could wait no longer. He strode toward the King's chamber, once his father's, now his own, intent on taking his Queen. Draco burst through the door and ordered any maids and servants out of the room with a harsh command. They left readily.

Draco looked around the magnificent chamber and found Hermione sitting in a chair in front of the fire. It was as hot as hell in the room, just how Draco liked it. He smiled. Hermione hadn't even turned when he'd entered. She sat in huge chair in front of the blazing fire. It engulfed her small frame and looked to have swallowed her. She was staring at the flames, which were licking their way around the embers in the fireplace. Draco new that she was wide-awake now that she had had her first taste of blood. But even as she was awake and aware, he pondered; she had no idea what was going on. "Hermione, look at me." He ordered. Hermione seemed to not have heard him, Draco knew better.

Draco ordered her once again and then remarked that if she didn't he could always force her. That got her angry, as he knew it would.

"You cannot force me to do anything Draco Malfoy," she cried out, spinning in the oversized chair. "I am not your puppet." she declared, pushing herself to the edge of her seat, balancing with her hands on the chair's arms. "What is going on here? Will someone please just tell me?"

Draco could tell she was upset, but he couldn't make himself care. He felt that it was not his duty to explain himself to her. He had no duties to her any more. In fact, it was she who had duties to him. It was her duty to give him a child.

"Draco?" she whispered in a voice mimicking that of the truly frightened.

Draco sighed.

"We are home." He began in a tone that almost made him sound bored "We are married and bonded." He continued, as if he were talking to a simpleton. "You will live here as my Queen and mother to my children. You will never go to that pathetic existence you called your life ever again. You will not work. At least at anything but your duties to me, your King and ruler, and your duties to all of Zandoffmoochenie. Now I have been very patient with you Hermione. You have led me in circles in your human existence for too long. Now there will be no more."

"I killed my boss." Hermione whispered as if she had not heard a word that was said to her. "Why would I kill Mr. Rawlings? I didn't mean to. Truly I didn't Draco. You must forgive me. It's just that something in my head made me want to do it. Something ordered me and then it felt like the right thing to do at the time. Oh Merlin, I am going to go to Azkiban now, oh Merlin, I killed him." Hermione quit her rambling and stood from her chair to gaze at Draco better.

Draco thought she'd gone daft. Hadn't she heard a word that he'd said to her? Just the thought of having someone issue an order to him set him on edge, only his parents had ever done that, due to them being entitled to it. And then, to add to the fault, he gave in to Hermione's wishes and patiently explained to her, her role, and she had not even listened.

It made him want to kill her all over again, but for good this time. Draco's blood boiled, due to the intense heat from the hearth, the angry rush of blood flowing in his veins at her insult, and the sexual attraction he felt towards the woman who now belonged to him.

Draco stared at Hermione's brown hair, wild around her shocked and frightened features. Her hair had always been his favorite attribute of hers, not only for its color, but also because of the way he was able to spread it out over the pillow at night. It had been pulled back for the ceremony, but she'd obviously released it. Draco hated it pulled back. He wanted to see the mass of hair that curl through his fingers, he liked it down.

Draco also noticed her creamy brown eyes that she always flashed at him when she was angry and not getting her way. They weren't flashing now. In fact, they now looked devastated. She would have to get rid of her soft heart. He would have to teach her to be more ruthless.

"You won't go to Azkiban. You are not going anywhere but where I tell you, you can go." Draco dictated. He must have jolted her back to reality again with that remark because the vulnerable woman that was just in evidence had vanished now, and in her place, Hermione shot fire from her eyes, directed at him. Draco grinned.

"You bastard. I don't belong to you. I demand to know what you meant earlier, what you said did not make a lick of sense to me."

"Of course not." Draco agreed with her. He decided, she being his only source of amusement at the moment, that he would tell her once again what she'd missed before. "You are my wife and Queen over my kingdom, under my rain, and over my people, the Zandoffmoochenie. I am King over the Zandoffmoochenie clan. My rival is Blaise Zabini. He is son of the ruler Alec Zabini, King of the only other vampire kingdom in existence. You will obey my every order and give me the heir I need. Other than that, I give you no other duties unless you find yourself in need of them." Draco smiled, satisfied. He felt proud that he was able to be so patient with her.

"Your Queen? Draco what is this? April Fools? My birthday? National prank day? What is going on?" she cried as she threw her arms up in the air. Draco held his smile as if the thought of her outrage amused him. "The last sane thing I remember is that we got married in Vegas. Then I end up here with you. and you tell me that you are a King and a vampire. Correct me if I am wrong."

Draco nodded his head. "But you forgot to mention our bonding. That ceremony makes you mine as a vampire. No other can have you and you can claim no other. You are mine. Hermione I know that you are having a hard time accepting your new life, but this is the way it is. You will never have to work again, and you can kill anyone you please, within reason of course. You also must always ask me if you want to do anything. It may not be safe and the vampires under my Uncle's rule could catch you. That would not please me. Now that you wear that ring," he pointed to the ring on her finger. "you are mine and any child that you will have will come from me, but you can have affairs with any other inside this house. I trust all in here, but none from any other part of the kingdom Hermione. You cannot be pregnant by anyone but me so that is not a factor here, but I will not trust anything that is mine to someone I don't trust. Do you understand?"

Hermione stared at him, flabbergasted. "Really. Draco this cruel game has gone on long enough and you are terrifying me. Please stop."

"This cannot stop. This is real Hermione. It is not at all in my nature to be patient, but I am trying. Do you require proof?"

Hermione nodded. Draco was not sure what would be the most fun way to prove it. He was having fun explaining it to her though. Just the thought that she was his, made him feel only fifty years old again. Should he bring to her another human as his dinner? He was starved; she'd drunk the entire human at their bonding, leaving him thirsty. But no, that would just make her think of him as a man-eating human. What should he do? He could do something really stupid and fly for her, but that wasn't anything exciting. She would probably want him to turn into a bat, as all the humans expected vampires to be when they flew. Stupid humans. They knew nothing. When Hermione just stared at him as though she thought he were crazed, he knew he was losing the battle in her mind. He thought of the next best thing to feasting, and she wasn't going to like it.

"I will force you to do something if you like." he offered, fingering his ring.

"That is impossible unless you physically over-power me. Other than that point, why, if this is real, don't you make me believe you?"

"Oh Hermione, that is no fun. Besides, I want you to be willing in everything I ask you to do. I don't want to have to force you. But if you need to be forced into doing something, I wont hesitate."

Hermione glared at him. "Make me do something that I don't want to do. Just to make sure. I know all about mind control games and trances."

Draco shrugged. "Alright then Hermione, kiss me."

"No!" she started backing away from him. "I wont do that even if you force me. Please don't make me kiss you, you are not my favorite person right now."

Draco didn't mind her words, they spurred him on. "So are you afraid that I am telling you the truth, my Queen?"

"Don't call me that." she ordered.

That made Draco frown. "You no longer have the right to order me about. Any man who challenges me gets exiled. I will not tolerate orders from you wife." Draco deliberately insulted her by referring to her human title. It was definitely not as grand being a wife, as his Queen. Unfortunately, Hermione didn't seem to understand the insult.

Draco noted that fact and continued, "Now kiss me." he ordered her again.

Hermione didn't move. She was terrified of Draco. She had no idea what was going on, what was true or not, or, what had happened to the man she loved. She shook her head and backed up another step.

Draco was furious, and aroused. Hermione could make him so mad, yet so eager to possess her at the same time. He clenched his jaw in frustration. She was the only person, human or vampire, aside from his parents, that he had ever allowed to deny him, and order him. That would end tonight. Draco started to whisper into the ring, yet the moment his head and finger came closer, Hermione started to run. She tried to rush past him and out the door, but he snagged her. Draco clutched her in his arms while she struggled. "And who do you think is going to help you escape out there? The royal guardsmen, my mother?" Hermione quit her struggling.

"I see that you believe me now." he whispered in her ear and kissed it. "I don't know what you are feeling Hermione, nor do I care at this moment, but you do make me ache."

Hermione stood as still as a statue. "Who are you Draco? You are not the man I love. Where did he go?"

"He died with you Hermione. This is the real me. Now come, there is only one more tradition that needs to be fulfilled this night. It is expected you know."

"And what is that?" she asked calmly, fearing that he was going to say the wedding night. He didn't, what he said was worse.

"We need to make sure that you are pregnant by morning or my people will be surly displeased with you."

"What?" she reared back, pushing her arms free of Draco's grasp. "You think I'm going to give you a wedding night? After all this?"

Draco frowned, "Of course we will have a bonding night. This is the time where you are fresh. This is your peek. Tomorrow night will be too late for the cycle and my son must be begotten tonight."

Hermione was frozen. She couldn't think. He wanted a baby from her. No, a son, she corrected. Tonight, as if there was a certainty that tonight would give him one.

Hermione tried to remember if she had learned anything in school about vampires. She couldn't remember anything. As far as the world was concerned, vampires were a myth.

Draco started walking towards her. Hermione realized that she'd backed up. She now stood only a few inches from the four poster bed. How on earth had she gotten herself into this?

While she was contemplating her circumstances, Draco had backed her against the bed. Suddenly, Hermione was so hot with wanting that she really wanted his kiss. All he had to do was stand there. She was such a mush when Draco was around. Apparently, it didn't matter if she was mad at him.

Draco leaned inward and kissed her. Hermione melted.

Draco's kiss was like an aphrodesiac. It must be a vampire thing. No, she thought, she did not want to ruin the moment. Tonight, it would be just them. Tonight, was her wedding night and damn anyone or anything that came between them.

Draco ran his hands over her stomach, running them over the light green night gown she'd put on.

"Sleep with me Hermione…" Draco commanded. He almost asked. Draco realized he had to get into better control of himself while around his Queen. If he weren't careful, he'd find himself asking her if he could rule his kingdom.

His command didn't matter though, Hermione still took it as a question, "Yes. Kiss me Draco. Don't stare, kiss me." Hermione latched onto his head and devoured his mouth. Maybe a command or two from her wouldn't be all that bad.

He eased the silk gown up. It slithered over the back of his hands to her mid-thy. She let out a little moan as he snaked his palms over her warm stomach. He eased his hands up to cup her breasts. The mounds fit nicely cradled in his palms.

Draco squeezed them and heard her gasp. Hermione tilted her head back, offering her tantalizing neck to him. Draco leaned forward, following her angle, and trailed his tongue over the length of her throat. He squeezed her nipples and bit her right over her pulsing muscle, keeping his fangs in check, and making sure not to break her skin with his human teeth.

Sliding his arm around her torso, Draco Pulled Hermione flush against him and climbed over the bed, placing her in the center.

"You're so beautiful, Hermione." Draco said, still kissing her.

She'd have to stop turning him on if she didn't want him to lose control and bite her.

"You shouldn't cover yourself up with sleep gowns." he added, taking his lips away from her hungry mouth, moving them to her shoulder, kissing her.

Hermione gave herself over to another moan. Draco took his time, kissing her shoulder, as he ripped the gown from her body. The silk tore with ease. Hermione arched her back into his hand and he trailed his fingers from her breast, down to her haven.

He circled her wrists, holding them at her sides, he didn't want any distractions. Draco nuzzled her stomach, playing with her belly button.

Hermione nearly screamed, she was so frustrated. Draco was restraining her wrists. She was burning with pleasure, in need or relief, and he wasn't nearly as crazed as she needed him to be.

Finally, he left her stomach. Hermione was actually relieved at that, until she felt where he was headed next. She pulled at her restraints, but Draco wouldn't release her. She tried counting sheep, that helped until his loving mouth found it's goal.

Hermione screamed as she had never screamed before. Tears leaked down her cheekbones, her body arched, straining to get away, but Draco would not relent. He sucked her little nub until Hermione felt spent with all of her mini orgasms.

When she thought it couldn't get better, he bit.

Draco felt her shiver. He knew when to push, when to suckle. He was more familiar with Hermione's body than she was herself. When Hermione began to relax with her final release, Draco shrugged out of his shirt and tore at his pants.

He came over her and rested his erection against the juncture of her thighs.

He moved his hands down her neck and then lower, stroking her breasts softly as she let her mouth open, in shock or pleasure he couldn't tell. He was definitely looking forward to pleasuring her again tonight. Her breathing came hard and fast, his fingers kneading gently, not groping.

"I love you Draco." she sighed, snuggling down into the bed. She had a sated, pleased, look on her face as she allowed her body to rest.

Draco didn't answer. He wouldn't.

Hermione opened her eyes in apparent question, as he spread her legs and thrust into her. They both gasped.

"How does this feel, Hermione?" he asked in a whisper, easing out and thrusting back.

"Oh Merlin." She panted, "Don't stop."

For the third time, Draco did as she commanded. Finding her hips, Draco forced them into a rhythm with his own. When he was close, he used his finger to find her pleasure and brought them both over the edge.

…..

Hermione woke with Draco lying next to her. She felt very strange. She had a craving, but she couldn't place it. Hermione felt Draco's arm around her and she could not budge. She remembered everything that had happened last night. She still wasn't sure that she believed it though. Hermione lifted her head to look at her surroundings, and noticed that she was still in that same strange room. Last night and this morning had been very real. Hermione plopped back down on the bed, unaware that her movement woke Draco.

She remembered that Draco had said that she was his property now and that she was a vampire. She quickly felt her teeth; they were normal, thank Merlin. She remembered how Draco had told her that she needed to have his child. She also remembered that she had told him no but how she also couldn't resist him. She cursed his appeal. No matter what happened before they'd slept, she still felt strange now. Hermione put the feeling aside for the moment.

Nothing Draco had told her last night was true, she was sure of it. She had no fangs after all. Hermione felt her teeth again and sighed. She stared at the ceiling. She wished that it weren't so bright in the room. The light was killing her eyes; she squinted.

"You'll get used to it." Draco murmered.

Hermione jumped. She thrust his arm off of her, and scrambled out of bed. She took the covers with her to shield her, but that momentary action caused Draco to be naked. She blushed. "Get used to what?" She asked, backing away from him.

Draco stretched his arms over his head, and eased into a sitting position. "The light. It can be a pain to look at, but you will get used to seeing in the daytime. The night is better though, no glaring sun. As for your teeth, they will come only when ordered to by your mind or instinctively in front of a meal. You should have small teeth now, but they should be full tonight." Draco rubbed his eyes with closed fists and yawned before he continued. "Vampires don't need much sleep. We usually sleep only about two hours between night and dawn. But when the women are pregnant, they generally sleep about the same amount of time as humans do. You should have the same symptoms and everything that pertains to the humans."

Hermione was shaking when he finished with his little speech. She didn't say anything to him however. She just wanted to leave. She knew he wasn't telling the truth, but the possibility of it still terrified her. Hermione backed into a corner and stood there. She watched Draco as he went to the bathroom and rinsed his face with sink water. She even stood in the corner and waited until he had finished taking a shower. It wasn't until he was almost finished dressing, that she had a few questions of her own.

"Draco?" her voice had softened so that it was a mere whisper.

Draco, with a vampire's superior senses, heard her plea for attention. "Yes?" He turned to face her.

"I believe you. You have been watching me for a long time haven't you?"

"Ever since you were born."

Hermione nodded. "I remember. I remember seeing you all the time, but as I grew up you disappeared, and I thought that you were part of my imagination. Could you talk to me for a while? I want to ask you a few questions."

Draco didn't say anything then. He just walked over to the chair in front of the fireplace and sat down. He then motioned for her to take the other chair. Hermione slowly moved out of her corner and sank into the chair across from his.

"Am I pregnant?" was her first question. Draco nodded. Hermione hugged her mid-section and swallowed convulsively. "You are the King right?" again Draco nodded. "Could you please speak to me?" Hermione choked in a soft cry.

"Yes I am King." Draco answered.

"And that would make me Queen." Hermione sighed. It wasn't a question, but Draco nodded anyway. "I remember what you told me last night. I remember every word. Draco, you don't really kill innocent people all the time right?"

"No." he answered. "We rarely kill at all. Most of the time we just drink until the human is on the verge of dieing. Then we heal their wounds, and they forget we were even there. We generally only kill the bad humans. The ones that kill their own kind. Those are the treats."

"But my boss…I killed him."

"He was your first. He was meant to die. I will teach you when to stop and how to get around the veins in the neck so that you don't kill."

"Has anyone ever drank from me?"

"No." Draco vehemently denied. "Anyone who tried to get near you would have been punished. You were mine since the day you were born. I chose you the day I saw your mother in the park pregnant with you. I was on the hunt and she was the first pregnant human that I saw."

"I never met my mother. She died when I was born. You didn't kill her did you?" Hermione asked, full of long term sorrow.

"Now Hermione, I would never kill your mother. You are taking this too well. I expected you to still not believe me this morning. Why the sudden change?"

"I guess part of me wants to believe you because I love you. But part of me is telling me that this is not real and that I know vampires don't exist. I guess the major part that believes you, is the knowledge that that ring you put on me works and I cannot get it off."

"The ring will not come off until I take it off. It will stay on for a while yet. But even after it's off it won't matter. You will still need to do everything that I say and can still be forced to it without the ring. The ring is merely a symbol to all that I have claimed you. Now Hermione, I have a lot to do today and I would like to get to work. I have answered your questions and now if you would get dressed, I will have breakfast brought to you here. Then after that, my mother will give you a tour and you can get to know your surroundings." Draco stood.

"Do you have any books to read on vampires?"

"Of course. I will have someone bring them here for you. I have work to do." Draco started for the door.

"But what about my friends and job? I still have those don't I?" Hermione asked. Draco turned to see tears in her eyes.

"No." he fairly shouted, "You will never go back there again do you hear me?" How could she even want to with all that he was offering her? He seethed.

"Yes, but why?"

"I have already explained it to you last night several times. I will not repeat myself again." Draco donned his black cloak and walked to the door.

"Draco one more question?"

Draco halted. "What?"

"Where are we?"

"In my room, in my castle, under my rule. Anything else?" he asked.

"What part of the world?"

"Paris, France. My mother will be here shortly. You are not to leave this room unless she is with you. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." She replied, knowing that she would do exactly as she pleased.

Draco no longer scared her, nor did her new position. If she now had power over people in his eyes, then she would wield it. Hermione was still freaked out, and she knew that none of this could truly be real, but if Draco wanted her to play along, then she would. She would play her role to perfection.

The first change she would make, was the No Killing or Drinking Humans law. Killing and drinking humans was just wrong. And what did Draco think? That he was her dictator? She did not think so. France her butt. They couldn't be in France. This was Vegas. Anything happened in Vegas, as she'd been told. Draco was just messing with her.

Hermione decided that she would meet his 'mother,' as he'd planned, just out of curiosity. She would also get a tour of his 'Kingdom' and drink the 'blood.' Then she was going to catch the next flight home. Draco would have to chase her down and win her back. This game he was playing on her was the first and last straw. Dan had played games on her, though admittedly not like this. Draco had vowed to her when they'd first started dating, that he never played games. How stupid she was for believing him.

There was a knock on the door, startling Hermione to reality. She spun around and stared at the barrier between her and the rest of the world. Should she open it? If she didn't, how much would it change things if someone were really out to get to her? Was it a slave or Draco's mother? Hermione walked over to the door. "Who is it?" she asked clutching the door handle and the quilt in both hands.

"Sally, Your _Majeste_. I brought your breakfast."

Hermione sighed in relief, even though she still didn't really know who would enter. She opened the door a crack and saw a sweet-looking woman standing with a tray. The tray held a goblet containing a dark liquid. Hermione opened the door wider and allowed the young woman entrance.

Sally stepped in and stared at her with open curiosity. Hermione didn't know what to make of her. "How old are you?" she asked Sally.

"115, Your _Majeste_." Sally bowed her head.

Hermione was stunned. The young woman didn't look more then 18 years old.

"I'm 26." She said. "I am finding this hard to believe." She admitted. "How much did Draco pay you?"

"Pay me Your _Majeste_?" she asked, looking up.

"Will you stop 'Your _Majeste_ing' me?" Hermione asked. "I want to know who paid you and how much they paid you, to act like I am your Queen and a vampire."

"His _Majeste_ would have me exiled if I failed to show you the respect that you deserve. Please don't ask me to drop your title." She pleaded. "Nobody is paying me anything to call you my Queen. You are whom I claim." Hermione must have looked stunned, because the young woman bowed her head again, "The King bonded with you last night."

"If I am a vampire and this is real, then prove it. Besides this damnable ring, nobody has proved any of this to me. Draco said that later when my teeth come in, I could will them to appear. You are an old vampire…so show me what he meant." She commanded, knowing that the servant wouldn't be able to.

Sally didn't argue with her Queen about her age, even though there were vampires much older than she. She opened her mouth and reared her lip back. Sally liked her new Queen. She was holding up a lot better under the shock than Sally had expected. Her Queen was brave to demand proof as she was. Sally wanted to impress her Queen with the size her vampire teeth were. She was determined to show her their full length. Sally told herself that it was time to stick her teeth into something solid yet soft, the sweet smell of meat and blood…

The minute that Sally's two side teeth became longer and pointier, Hermione jumped back. She almost screamed. This was real. There was no doubt now. Oh crap, she was dead!

Hermione tripped over the blanket and fell on her bottom. The sweet Sally came back to her then.

"Oh," Sally rushed forward. "I didn't mean to frighten you Your _Majeste_. Please tell me my sentence now so I can begin it. Oh, forgive me again _Majeste_. I am forever speaking out of line." She helped Hermione to stand and then backed away from her, with her head bowed once again. Hermione thought that she looked like a frightened child.

"It is okay Sally." Hermione assured, "I told you to prove it didn't I?"

Hermione didn't know why she wasn't as frightened as she should be. She felt that even though this was abnormal, she actually wanted to comfort the vampire for proving she was a vampire.

"Sally?" Hermione rushed. "Draco told me that I am pregnant. Is that true?' How she thought Sally would know, she didn't know, but Sally knew she was a vampire didn't she? Besides, Hermione didn't care if she was in her right mind now. She needed to know any way that she could know, about anything that these vampires had done to her.

"Yes, you are." Came an unfamiliar voice from the doorway. "Sally back to your duties please."

Sally nodded her head and bowed out of the room.

Hermione turned at the sound of the voice. Standing in the doorway, an elder woman with Draco's silver eyes, was assessing her. Hermione stood straighter and prepared herself to meet the former Queen. She was still a Queen, Hermione cautioned herself, no matter that there were now two of them. It must be strange for Draco's mother to have someone with her title now living in the same domain. The former Queen looked very sad. Well, Hermione didn't want this world. All that she wanted was her life back. Draco's mother could have everything back, including her son.

"It is only right that you replace my bonding with yours and my King with my son. I will help you to settle into your new position. Then I will join my King."

"I don't need help 'settling in.'" Hermione said. "I need help getting out. Why is it that your husband isn't still ruling if he is alive?" she couldn't help but ask.

Draco's mother gave a sad smile. "He is not living." the woman took a deep breath, as if to hold herself together, and continued, "Draco killed my King last night for the ritual. I now have the same choice that you will someday have, the choice to die with him or die when I choose to. I will help you settle in first, and then I will have Draco kill me." She spoke as if nothing bothered her above the fact that she had lost her husband. Hermione felt sorry for her.

Oh Merlin, with all of the vampires that she will end up feeling sorry for by the end of the day, she would probably even forgive them. She needed to get a hold of herself and get out of there as soon as possible. Draco had killed his father? Oh Merlin.

Seeing that Hermione wasn't going to say anything, the former Queen continued, "I know what you are thinking Hermione." She hoped that using Hermione's name would help her to calm down. "You are trying to understand this, but we seem like just a bunch of murderers and you feel like you want to escape. I know because that is how I felt when I had first been bonded. Don't try to run Hermione. It will only get my son angry with you and you could get captured by my cousin-in-law's kingdom. They will hold you prisoner. I suggest that you stay on the grounds. The men do all the hunting here. They bring us food."

"Are you telling me that the women here have no other existence besides to live here and have children?"

"Hermione it is not like that. It is like a world of our own here that the humans don't know about. The men don't kill, they just bring home animal meat after their hunt and it lasts the kingdom breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

"Well I wont allow it. They are hurting people; Draco said so. I have always been fascinated with vampires and I know all about this race even if I didn't believe in them until now. I know that you kill even though everyone here is trying to gloss over the facts."

"No. You know what you read in books and watch in movies. Humans know nothing about us but the bare facts."

"That is besides the point. You were once in my position right?"

"Yes. And you will one day be in mine. Draco was the only child I was able to give my King. I hope you will be able to give yours many more."

"You see, like that." Hermione was furious. "Don't vampires ever show any emotion? My husband just killed his father! You loved him didn't you? Of course you did, you wouldn't have been married to him otherwise."

"You have much to learn Hermione. Come, sit and we will talk some more about it. You are not even clothed yet."

Hermione sat. She felt like she was the avenger of all new Queen vampires. She wanted to change their way of life so that they didn't live in such a cold existence. But, she reminded herself, she didn't believe in vampires. And she really didn't want to get more involved in this lunacy than she already was.

"I loved Lucius when I had first met him. He was perfect. Then he made me his Queen and I hated him, much like you hate Draco now. Over the next nine months that I was pregnant with Draco, I began to fall in love with my King again - "

"You mean husband." Hermione interrupted.

"Well, yes." Draco's mother sat in a chair in front of the fireplace and gestured for Hermione to sit in the other.

Hermione glared at the chair as though it would move out from under her, and sat. Draco's mother gave her an amused look. Hermione tried not to look like she'd noticed.

"But, on the topic of husbands and wives, we don't use the human terms for bonding here." the elder woman continued, "Here we are King and Queen. Anyway, it is not in a vampire's nature to love or to feel any kind of feeling but cold heartedness and a need to get the job, whatever it is, done. Lucius was using that ring on me every time I refused to do his bidding too. I was as willful as I am sure you will be. Then, over the nine months I was pregnant, he began to feel. He didn't want to force me and took the ring off. He still ordered me around when I became too difficult though." She laughed.

"Draco wasn't like this before last night." Hermione inserted. She wanted answers.

"Of course he wasn't." the Queen replied. "Draco became anyone he knew you wanted to be with. While courting you, he became that man so that one night you would marry him. That night was last night. Now that he bonded with you, his mate, he doesn't need to pretend anymore."

"Are you saying that he never loved me?" Hermione seethed.

"Well, he perhaps does care for you. My King and I noticed that last night. His face softens when he looks at you and he is very protective."

"But he never loved me." Hermione repeated. It all made sense now.

"I will let you in on what I know to be truth Hermione, Draco will come to love you. He will fight it just as Lucius fought loving me, but he will love you." Draco's mother gave her a serene smile. Gazing into the depths of her memories, she continued with her story, "On the day of Draco's birth, I almost didn't make it. That scared Lucius because as he put it, he was 'getting used to having me around'. Lucius was the one who had saved me then. He had the entire castle in a frenzy. Having Draco had made me too weak for almost two months. I was in a coma for almost a month, or so I was told when I woke up. It was the strangest feeling I had ever had, even stranger than you feel now.

"During that time, Lucius had not eaten or slept much, the only thing that he had done, was try to cure his dieing Queen. You didn't know that there was death after death did you Hermione? There is only one way that we can kill our race with honor and that is to use the sword of Zandoffmoochenie. But we can die on our own from hunger and childbirth. I hope that you take my story as a lesson Hermione. And as hope. Draco will love you."

The woman reached for Hermione's hand and gave it a squeeze. This surprised Hermione almost as much as the story had.

"Draco has asked me to take you around the castle today, but I don't want to do it until you have thought this through. I think that you should have this day to yourself for those thoughts. I believe that my son is already falling in love with you child. He has been calmer lately, now that he finally has someone of his own. He has wanted you for so long Hermione; I can see it in his eyes. I know that you can find happiness here. You will make new friends as I did, and I will be here as long as you need me. Go and look out the window and see your new homeland. I will leave you now."

"Thank you for helping me. What do I call you? Your Majesty?"

"No, no. That title is only for servants and others who are not family. Call me Narissa."

"Thank you, Narissa."

Draco's mother smiled and left the room.

Hermione sighed. She had done so much thinking lately that she feared that her head would explode. The former Queen had a convincing and nice story, but she was still scared. She was happy with her life. She didn't really want to be Queen. It was reassuring to know that Draco liked having her there, but she was after more. He would have to bend further. She would not leave her life for this existence. She would have to find a way to book a flight home as soon as she could. Hermione sighed, impulsively marrying Draco was more than she had thought it would be. She made a note to herself to never be that impulsive again.

Hermione left for the airport that very day. She was surprised that she was able to find her way out of the castle without many hold-ups too. But, seeing that everyone knew who she was, she had no trouble passing people on her way out. Stepping outside was interesting. She realized that everyone was walking about and it seemed like the castle was the center of a little village. There were probably about five hundred Vampires, underestimated of course.

Hermione realized that these were the people she would be ruling, this semi-large community of people. She hated the thought of it. But, the only way that Hermione could even to get out of the main gates of the community and into the real world, was to tell the guards that she had Draco's permission. They actually believed her and finally opened the gates as she'd demanded they do when she'd first approached them. So much for the power of being 'Queen'.

Hermione booked a flight that afternoon.

The airport was crowded and stuffy. Hermione didn't have any purse with her, although she'd managed to smuggle out her credit card. She got hit in the knee by running children, and had almost fallen to the ground. She had to wait to board her flight due to some reason that she hadn't bothered to inquire after. When she had finally managed to board the plane, hurt knee and all, she had ended up sitting next to a very sweet elderly woman with a hunched back and a salami smell on her breath. No matter how much she tried to avoid conversation with the lady, Hermione still had to listen to an entire three stories about the poor gray haired cat with the broken paw that the vet was about to euthanize. Hermione pretended to be asleep for the fourth story. All in all, it was nice to be around normal people again.

Hermione was relieved when the flight attendant started giving safety instructions with an English speaking translator.

Hermione, still pretending sleep, tried not to listen to the cat lady's continued tales. She needed sleep after such an eventful night. It would probably set her head straight. She couldn't sleep though; she needed to think.

__

The room, it was white, blurry. 'Hermione, I think she'd responding…'

It was bright. The walls were too bright. Her body ached. She needed something,

someone. She couldn't think. Couldn't remember. Was she on a plane? Was she a

vampire?

There was movement all around her. Someone had grabbed her hand, maybe. She

couldn't move her right arm. Maybe she was sick. Maybe Draco was controlling her. He

had drugged her, was bringing her back.

She moaned her anger, but couldn't do more than that. Someone was calling her name.

Someone was mad at her. What had she done wrong? Where was her wand? She needed

to warn them away…

"…and then poor Artibicus needed a shot. He had kitty diabetes. Now, how on earth cats get diabetes I don't know…"

Hermione shook her head in confusion. Had she dreamed? That time it felt so real. Maybe this was a side effect of knowing Draco. Maybe it was a vampire thing. She would have to ask him. Hermione forced that thought away. There would be no asking Draco anything. She had no desire to see that man anymore. As soon as she got home she was going to get an annulment and that was that.

She had to tell Ginny. Oh that was going to be hard to explain.

"…Artibicus was such a sweet willed thing. He never even tried to run the mouse out from under my sink. Now Deatreese, he would have attacked that mouse until there was nothing left…"

Hermione wondered how she was going to make sure Draco never saw her again. She would need his signature on the papers from her lawyer, but she wasn't sure she needed to be in the room while he did it. Who was she kidding, Draco wouldn't give her an annulment. This was the man who had told her that she needed to have his child pronto. And not because of his undying love for her, she reminded herself. She wished she could rip him a knew one.

Hermione ran her hand over her taunt stomach, wondering. She certainly hadn't used protection last night. She knew Draco hadn't either. If Draco told his lawyer that she was pregnant, they probably wouldn't be able to get an annulment. Damn him. Hermione felt her throat closing and the beginnings of tears. She was going to cry. She couldn't handle any of this.

What was she doing? What mess was she in? She was married, and possibly pregnant, to a psycho boyfriend who never loved her to begin with and lives with people who think they are vampires. He murdered his father and, oh merlin, she murdered her boss.

Hermione dropped her throbbing head in her hands and prayed for peace. She prayed this was all just a dream.

"…my neighbor Arthur Jennings has told me for years, he says, 'Erma, you have too many animals. If you take in any more cats or dogs I'm calling the animal people on you.' I told him for years that he can have as many as he wants as long as he doesn't take my cat Biddy. But old Arthur just doesn't want any. I been telling him for years I'd share, but he just storms back…"

Hermione drifted into a deep sleep.

* * *

_Author's Note: Thoughts about my story and/or chapter are encouraging. Please review._

_Special thanks to,_

Winter Midnight

NA

voldyismyfather

numbdramione2005

TwinsConspiracy

_for reviewing my previous chapter._


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: _

_Sorry for the double reading in this chapter. I had to combine some of the chapters because they were too long. I have shortened them a bit. I have made this one longer though, so read about half way down to get to the 'update'_

* * *

Chapter Four

In what had seemed like forever, Hermione was home. She had hailed a cab after her flight and when she got to her house, she could smell the dirty dishes from the night before. Oh what a mess. Last night had been a living nightmare. Hermione washed the dishes in an attempt to feel normal. When she'd completed that task, she then called her best friend's work.

"Hello, Is Ginevera Weasley available?" Hermione leaned over her counter, placing both elbows on the marble, while chewing her nails on one hand. "Ginny? Hey it's Hermione. You will not believe the night I just had. Yes it was steamy, I think. Look, Gin, could you swing by my place after work? I need to talk to you about something. No Ginny, it is serious I cant tell you now. Just come over okay? And right after work. I think that I will never be able to see you again if you don't hurry and I need to tell you goodbye. I need you to hurry." she stressed, "Okay, see you soon, bye." She punched the 'end' button with a sigh.

"Nicely said."

Hermione screamed and leaped from the counter, dropping the phone in the process.

"I knew you would come back here. You cannot have your life back, Hermione. And your death is mine." Draco, as though he had all the time in the world, was leaning against the door frame of her bedroom. He straitened, eyes never leaving her own, and started her way.

Hermione backed away step for step. She didn't want Draco near her, but she knew her appartment well. There were only so many steps she could take before she would bump into the side wall.

"You were right." Draco purred, "Last night was steamy. Tonight will be even hotter." his eyes narrowed as he continued his stalking game, "You put the entire Kingdom into frenzy running away like you did. You are lucky that I told my guardsmen to let you pass them when you came. You cannot leave without asking my permission again, and you will do as you are told in the future. You will not ever shame me in this way." Draco paused to gauge her reaction.

Hermione tried not to show him anything. She kept her hands to her sides, and her face poker-straight.

"I knew that you would try to come back to this life. My mother tried to come back to hers too." he continued, "My patience is hanging on a thread with you. Do you need to go into the tower and be treated as my father's cousin would treat you if he had found you first? Your friend Ginny is the one they have chosen, you know. News from the other kingdom says that he chose her while I bonding with you. He did it to start a riot to my way of thinking. He knew that you would protest. You will not give him the satisfaction. You will see her again sometime, maybe when I kill her future king."

"Draco? Please." Hermione kept her eyes steady, her mind thought full, "I understand what is going on and I have accepted it. I knew that Vampires existed for a long time now and I know that I am now one. You have convinced me fully. No I am not scared of it. Just please, let me say goodbye to my friend. That is the real reason I came back." She lied, "I am becoming more of a vampire by the minute, it's the ring, I can feel it. Just let me say goodbye."

Draco hesitated a moment. "You are costing me many hours of my work, Queen." He growled.

"I am sorry."

"No, your not." He sighed.

Hermione glared at him.

In the end Draco conceded. He would do anything to spite his enemies after all, and he knew that Hermione hadn't touched her breakfast.

Hermione was going to kill her friend. Draco also knew that she would be distraught when she realized it, and he didn't ever want to see her in pain. So, being her king, he would do the only thing left open to him and make Ginny a vampire too. His enemies would be livid. He just wondered how he was going to carry two vampires home with him. Still, he could barely contain his excitement.

Grasping Hermione by her upper arm, Draco ignored her protest and dragged her over to the sofa. Sitting her down, he then sat himself, and pulled her struggling form to snuggle under the weight of his arm. With his elbow resting on Hermione's shoulder, he ran his hand over her head and through her hair. Years of watching this and doing it himself, had taught Draco that giving Hermione a head massage was the fastest way to put her at ease and even asleep. Hermione melted into his side. Draco hid a knowing grin.

The knock fell on the door an hour later. It was almost dark now. Almost time for Hermione's to five senses to expand and for her to lose all reasonable thought, as was what happened to all new vampires when they didn't have control over their bodies. His senses already were coming alive. Draco could already smell the soft skin on Hermione's friend. He was already imagining the joy he would feel at sticking his teeth into that smooth neck. He could hear the blood flowing through her veins. Hermione opened the door. He knew she could hear it too.

Ginny Weasley stepped inside the tiny space with a smile for him and a huge sparkle in her eye for Hermione. Draco noticed how Hermione tried to ignore the call of her new life. He noticed how she would pinch her nose every now and again as she talked to her friend. He noticed how she would pause to hold her hand over her mouth, glaring at him because she didn't understand. She thought he was doing this to her. She thought he was toying with her senses. Draco didn't say a word. He just waited.

In the middle of telling her friend all about her 'wonderful' honeymoon that she was unfortunately too drunk to remember, Hermione froze. Draco studied Ginny and knew she was aware of Hermione's behavior. Hermione's eyes glazed over and Draco stepped back. Ginny Weasley screamed her protest as Hermione dragged her to the ground, and then screamed in terror as Hermione mauled her neck. Draco didn't know why humans would scream. He couldn't remember that he had ever felt any of this incredible pain that they apparently did.

"Draco?" Hermione cried out.

He came to focus then. Hermione was on the carpet draped over her friend, pulling at her head to yank it in place. She was sobbing into the blood soaked blouse her friend was wearing, and tried to wrap her arms around the dead woman. This killing had been messier than usual. There was blood everywhere he looked. Draco sighed at Hermione's emotional display, and knelt down to revive her friend.

Hermione backed off when Draco sat beside her. She even allowed him to drink from Ginny, even though it was her friend that he was feasting on. Hermione couldn't believe it. She had just killed her best friend. She felt like sobbing. How could someone suffer so much and then go and kill the only friend that she had? As she sobbed out her pain, she heard a bang on the apartment door. It was the authorities on the other end, telling them that they would bust the door down if it wasn't opened. Hermione looked teary-eyed at Draco who was still drinking from Ginny. When he heard the pounding, he gathered them both, one under each arm, and jumped out the window. Hermione couldn't care less that they were running from the law. It was then that she realized for sure, she was a vampire. A vampire who killed her best friend.

Ginny just hung under Draco's arm like a rage doll. She was hanging rather like a blanket that was tucked into his side. Hermione looked at Draco's face as he carried them. Through her tears, she saw that he had grown hard and determined. She then continued to stare at Ginny. Her friend no longer had blood all over her neck and hair, though her shirt was still soaked through. She looked pale but the bite marks on her neck were no longer there. Had Draco healed her? He'd told her earlier that he didn't kill unless the human were evil and killed their own kind. Had he healed Ginny then? Hermione prayed that he had. That he was able to do so.

What was she going to tell her friend when she woke up? 'I am sorry Ginny, but you looked good enough to eat?' That sounded stupid even to her own ears.

Hermione was just starting to relax and enjoy being carried, when Draco stopped suddenly and sat her on her feet. She noticed then that they were inside that same room that Hermione had been in the night before, when she had killed her boss. "Will Ginny be alright?" she asked, rushing around Draco to her friend's side.

"Yes." he answered her.

Hermione couldn't think beyond that yes. After checking Ginny's pulse, she jumped up and threw herself straight into Draco's arms. "Thank you so much." She whispered through her tears. "I was so scared that I'd hurt her. I didn't know what to do. Thank you Draco. I don't know what I would do in the world without her." Hermione swung her arms around her husband's neck and kissed him.

Draco hugged her back. It was about time that she showed a little positive emotion toward him. She'd been down right boring since he'd turned her. Draco was glad that he was getting his Hermione back, even though he shouldn't care either way.

This was the kind of kiss that Draco had dreamed of. He kissed her deeply. He even used his fangs, and, he noticed, she was using hers too. Draco was proud of her. She had gotten over the shock fast. Now she would accept that she was pregnant and could take care of their children. Draco made no demands on her; he wanted to see just how far she would go with the kiss. Wrong decision he realized, when after a few minutes, Hermione raised her head and looked at him with starry eyes. Draco knew Hermione would wouldn't kiss him again without a demand. She was too busy alternating between shooting quick glances at her still unconscious friend, and fingering her fully descended teeth. Draco decided to tell her then. There was no simpler way.

"Hermione I need to take her now."

"Take her where?" Hermione asked dazed and still smiling.

"To her mate, her future husband. He branded her his, there is nothing I can do. She belongs to him. I may have had the pleasure of turning her, but she needs to go to Zabini before he starts a war over her. I will leave her as close as I can to his castle and then come home so that you can complete what you started."

"What?" Hermione shouted, rushing out of his arms and dropping to her knees in front of her friend. "You turned her? There was no other way? Don't you realize that you ruined her chance to live happily? You stole that from me last night, why did you steal that from her? She had a life too, you bastard." Hermione lifted her friend's head and placed it on her bent knees.

Draco clenched his jaw. "It was the only way I could save her. She would have been lost forever had I not done it. Zabini is not yet ready to marry, he wont be for a month. Your friend will stay with him until he is ready."

"No" Hermione growled, "She will stay with me. I will not let her go to that man. Cousin or no Draco, she will stay with me. I will never see her again if she goes away. I was okay with never seeing her again if she stayed human, but not this."

"She will go tonight." he demanded, "She will marry and bond in a month. I will not have a war called for. I will not kill her when it is time to kill her King. You will see her then. That is when we will unite the two kingdoms and become one."

"How many times do I have to tell you no? You can't take her from me Draco."

"She will be well taken care of." he replied. "Now go to our room. We will not discuss this again. Now Hermione!" he yelled when she refused to move. Hermione still didn't budge, but only continued to stare at him. Draco calmed his body, freezing his heaving shoulders to appear the royalty he was. He held himself back by shear force of will.

Draco had only been bonded one full day, and already he was ready for his son to kill him. Hermione was testing to his patience. He couldn't have that. Some of his race chose to hurt their mates if they were out of line. Draco never wanted to do that to her. His father had never hurt his mother and he would never hurt her. But it was going to be hell, if she was stubborn like this for 250 years. He was looking forward to taming her.

Hermione stood. She never took her eyes off of her husband as she reached under Ginny's arms and then began the slow process of dragging her. She kept her eyes on Draco to judge what he would do at her show of partial defiance, but he never moved. Hermione Dragged Ginny all the way out of the room.

Draco may think that she was shaming him again, but she couldn't care about him and his damn pride. She would have none of it. Hermione did go to the chamber that was hers and Draco's, after all, she didn't want him to use that damn ring on her again, but she locked the door after she and Ginny were inside. Then she sat, leaning against the heavy wood with Ginny's head in her lap. She stayed that way until sleep claimed her.

Draco had told her that Vampires slept only about two hours a night but, she remembered, she was pregnant. If she was now fully convinced that she was a vampire, and that everything that Draco had told her about them were true, then she had no doubt that she was pregnant. Merlin, would wonders never cease?

…..

When Hermione woke, the first thing that she noticed was that she lay on the big bed in the room. She was so very tired. Wiping the dryness out of her eyes didn't help change that. The second thing that she noticed was that it was late in the day, probably mid-noon. She stretched herself out under the covers and yawned. That was when she remembered where she was and who was supposed to be with her. Hermione pushed herself into a seated position and looked around the bedchamber. Empty. The room she was in was empty of all life except for herself. Draco must have been the one to place her in the bed.

Hermione looked about the spacious room in an acute panic. Ginny, was not with her. Seething, Hermione saw that she was naked and quickly dressed herself. She rushed over to the door, ignoring the very strategically placed goblet of blood on her end table. Easing the door open, she peaked her head out into the hall.

"Is everything alright your _Majeste_?" one of the guards standing by the door asked.

"No," she barked at him. Agitated, Hermione threw the door open the rest of the way so that she didn't look cowardly. "Where is the woman that was with me last night? Did Draco take her?"

"Our enemy is locked in her own chamber until a month's time your _Majeste_. His _Majeste_ gave orders that you are not to see her or speak with her."

"She is my friend and I demand, as your Queen, that you take me to her."

"I cannot do that your _Majeste_. His _Majeste_ would not be pleased. His _Majeste_ told me to let you of her if you asked, but I cannot say more on any matter. He said that you should speak to him about concerns."

"I will not speak to him as long as I have air in my lungs to do so. I order you to not say that Ginny is your enemy either. She is my friend. And if I am your Queen, then she is not your enemy any more then she is mine. Is that understood?" Hermione was shouting by the time she had finished her instruction.

The two men at the entrance to the room merely nodded their heads.

"Good." She waltzed passed them. Hermione was only halfway down the hall when she turned around. "By the way, what are your names?" they stayed silent.

'That was not a request but an order." The men just looked at her. The guard had said that he was ordered not to speak to her. She guessed that her orders did not overrule that of her husband, High and Mighty King Draco with a Stick-Up-His-Rear. She glared at them and turned around to proceed down the hall.

Hermione decided that if the guards weren't permitted to speak with her, then they were probably just as useless for directions around the castle, as they were with Ginny. Hermione continued down the hall, and turned down all the corridors that she wished to. She tried every door, and no guard tried to stop her doing so. Hermione found that every door was locked and that every time she tried to pick the lock with her hairpin, the task proved to be a waste of time. The doors would not budge, and neither would the guards.

Hermione cursed the sunlight that shined in her face every time she passed one of the tall, gothic style windows. She hated the coldness of the marble floors she walked on, and the silence of the deserted halls. She wanted to hear laughter, joy, happiness. She wanted to hear her friend say the outrageous things that she did. She wanted to picnic in the park and watch all the children play. She wanted to see them with their mothers and fathers and wish that she would some day share a life like that with her husband. She hated this castle already. She hated the fact that Draco seemed to be a cold-hearted person, or rather, vampire. She hated the fact that everything that she did was wrong in his eyes. She hated that she had chosen the wrong man again. She had chosen a pretender, a man who cheated her out of a happy life. She wanted to go home, she realized. She wanted to take her friend home.

Hermione squat down at another door. She peeked into the keyhole and saw only the blinding sunlight from an un-curtained window. She didn't even try the handle this time, but took her bobby pin and stuck it into the lock. Unfortunately, this door hadn't needed to be picked. The door flew open the instant Hermione had really started to work on the lock. Three people stood in it's place. Hermione scrambled to her feet and backed up a few steps. The three women stepped into the hall, seeming to not notice her folly. First the Queen, and then two serving maids, one she recognized as Sally, the other, an elderly woman older than the Queen, but with the same softness in her eyes.

"Your _Majeste_." Sally exclaimed. Hermione felt the pink shade of embarrassment come to her cheeks.

"Would you like a word Queen Hermione?" Asked the dowager with a slight, barely noticeable, tone of disapproval.

"No." Hermione let her stubbornness show. She knew everyone had known what she was doing. The hairpin still in her grasp was clue enough. She decided to hell with decorum. "If you don't like how I act then you should turn me human and let me go home." She commented dryly.

The Queen smiled a knowing smile and held out a hand to her. "Ruth, see to the woman as I have instructed. Sally, I want you to be Her _Majeste_'s new lady's maid. See to her clothing now."

"Ma'am," Hermione started. "My cloths are in my apartment. Back home."

"See to it Sally."

"Yes Your _Majeste_." She curtsied and left them.

"I know that I am a little out of the times, being two hundred and seventy-eight, but I still believe that nobility deserves the proper care. Sally will do well for you. And if that is not how you wish to do things," she sighed with a wave of her hand, "then you can merely send her off."

Hermione just looked at the Queen.

"Ah," Draco's mother shook her head, recalling why Hermione was here. "You were looking for someone. Well, you won't find her in my new quarters. The woman is in a separate chamber, being tended to right this moment. She will be well taken care of I assure you. My son will see to it that she is taught everything she needs to know about being one of us, and towards the end of the month he will take her to our enemy."

"I want to see her. Take me to her."

"No. You were ordered not to see her."

"You too? The guards wouldn't even tell me."

"The guards are not allowed to speak to you unless it is to relay to you orders or a message. They cannot speak to royalty, only to servants. Unless you wish them to share your bed, of course."

"Share my bed?" Hermione had to ask.

"For the guard to share your bed, Hermione. To share intimacy with him."

"That will never happen." Hermione shook her head vehemently. "I will never sleep with any man here."

"Oh," The Queen's surprise was genuine, "Has my son not told you that it is acceptable? I must have a talk with him about his duty to tell you these things. You know, when I was a young vampire, my King wouldn't let me share anyone else's bed? He said not until he had his heir. It was very selfish of him. And when I did have Draco, he said that I was his property and nobody else's. Still, he would starve Draco if he knew that his son was now shirking his duty, as he did to me."

"I do not want to sleep with anyone Queen. I just want to see my friend." The Queen took Hermione's arm and together they started walking down the hall.

The Queen also ignored her comment. "You know you missed the party in your honor last night. My son said that he would reschedule it to tonight. He said that you had an unexpected guest with you that he needed to take care of." Hermione gasped, her spine stiffening.

"Now child, she is still here. Just as before you fell asleep."

"I don't want to keep asking you ma'am. Please tell me where I can find my friend."

"No. As I said before, I cannot tell you. Nobody is permitted to tell you. Draco is being sensitive to your feelings by keeping you away. He knows that if you see her, you will not want him to take her where she belongs. He is sparing you the pain he knows you will feel."

"That is all very high and mighty of him Ma'am, but—"

"You must call me by my given name Hermione. We are family."

"I find this still very strange. If you don't mind me asking, what year were you born in?"

"1727 of course. Why would you ask such a thing?"

"And you have lived here how long?"

"Once again, I thought my son had explained to you about these facts." The Queen stopped and looked at her. "I have lived here for two hundred fifty years, nine months and three days."

"Just my point." Hermione began. She was shaken by the large number, but continued. "You have no idea what world is beyond these walls. You know only what the men tell you. You have no idea what has changed besides what is here. I want to live in that world with my friend. Yes, I have always been fascinated with vampires, but I do not want to live my life behind these walls. I want to change the way vampires live. The women here are repressed."

"Hermione. You are sailing without a ship here. Draco makes the laws, you are here to support him and care for his children."

Hermione grit her teeth on that one. "I demand to see Draco or Ginny."

"Ginny will be at the other Kingdom in a month. She will shortly become your enemy. She will bare heirs to be her new King's successors, and some day, Draco or your heir, will kill him or his heir and unite the two kingdoms." Draco's mother started along a corridor then, dragging Hermione with her. Hermione hadn't even realized they'd stopped. "Draco is in his study. He will not want to be disturbed."

"The guardsmen told me that if I had any concerns then I should tell him."

"Yes dear, but only if they are serious concerns. Akin to that of your pregnancy, an attack, or a vampire who was out of line with you. He will not want to hear of this, with your friend."

"What does he do all day?"

"He works, what else?"

"And what does he do all night?"

"He will be with you, or another, or he will be out on the hunt."

"With me or in another's bed, or out hurting people." Hermione whispered to herself. She sighed.

"Oh Hermione," The Queen paused to take in her measure, "We must get you ready for the party tonight. It is nearing sun down." Hermione let the Queen drag her down to her room and assist her into a black gown. The Queen fixed her hair in a swirl atop her head, and handed her a black fan to fan her face with against the night's heat. "You look lovely. Just wait until Draco sees you."

Hermione could care less about what Draco saw her in. She was too concerned about getting to her friend.

She swore that she would go on a strike if her orders or requests were not answered. She vowed it. And since the only thing that Draco truly cared about was this child, then she would starve herself. She wouldn't tell anyone about it, but she would just refuse to drink until Draco saw things her way and stopped hurting humans. They could just as easily breed animals here to drink from but not kill. Yes, that was what she would do.

She had to make a stand. She wouldn't really be hurting herself or the child, because Draco wouldn't let her starve to death. She did wonder how she was going to control the craving though. Food sounded so good right now. She found that she loved the taste of it. And she also wondered why she didn't own anything the color black. Black was the only color she would ever wear again. Every other color was just too bright, too hard on the eyes.

Hermione knew that the ring's influence was making her feel these things. She knew that if she didn't hurry, then she would have no will left to fight Draco for what she wanted. She knew that if she didn't have the will, then she wouldn't care what happened to Ginny. She also suspected that her friend would starve to death and be scared out of her mind before she could get to her.

At the party that night, Hermione sat next to Draco at the head of the table. There was music, dancing, and drinking. Draco held her hand through most of the night. They danced the first dance and then sat in their royal chairs that were set apart from everyone else in the room. Hermione thought that she was living in the eighteenth century. Everything was very, very, old fashioned.

Draco hadn't said a word to her all night. She sat as the picture of silence in her chair at the head of the room, as she assumed any obedient Queen would do. And she only tried to talk to Draco when they were dancing and nobody could hear them. He told her then, that they would talk later, as now was not the time. Hermione almost slapped him and stormed out of the ballroom. She barely managed to keep her composure. Draco must have realized her near explosion however, because he kissed that damn ring of his, and from then on, she didn't want to leave his side, or do anything that would embarrass him. Hermione felt like a puppet at the ends of his strings, and that was exactly what she was.

Draco conversed with others at the party, and she was either left to her chair, or silent at his side. The crowds laughed, and they toasted. She felt like she was somehow very out of place. Hermione decided to test Draco. She wanted to have a good time, but she was getting damn irritated with him. She wanted to see if what she'd been told was true. Would he really not mind if she flirted with someone else? She then left his side. Draco was still engaged in the conversation, and couldn't follow her even if he chose to. She could still feel his eyes on her back.

Hermione chose the first good-looking man with his fangs not showing that she could find. "Do you want to dance?" She asked the vampire. He smiled at her. "You know I cannot dance with you Your _Majeste_. It is not permitted."

"Not on the floor no." she agreed, hoping against hope, that Draco was furious and on his way over to them to yell at her. He wasn't. A quick glance over at him told her that. The man wasn't even looking at her anymore. He had just turned back to his friend and was now ignoring her. That bastard.

She would teach him to care about her. As a matter of fact, she was sure a part of him already did. It was a start. As of yet though, nobody had said anything to her about her lack of appetite. "Why don't we break the rules for once and cut the rug a little. Draco won't mind. I have his permission to do this."

"If that be your wish my Queen." The wary man agreed.

Hermione took the hand he offered, and lead him to the dance floor. When the man pulled her into his arms, there was a collective gasp from the crowd. They began to dance. Hermione hoped that Draco was watching this, as it was forbidden. She must only be able to have affairs if they were discreet. It was already clear that she was never ever allowed to dance with another man in public. Hermione smiled into the handsome man's eyes.

When the dance was over Draco claimed her hand. He glared at the other vampire and ordered him into his office first thing in the morning. He then dragged Hermione away from him.

Draco took her back up to the front of the room and stood on the small platform where their chairs sat. With her in front of him, and a glass of blood in his hand, he raised it up high and waited for others to do so too. When they did he began his speech. "As your king, I have sworn to protect you with my life, I have given you that silent oath the night I was bonded with my Queen. And here she stands, she and the life of my heir inside her. This party was a welcoming party for her and the child she will bare. I know you will all devote yourselves to her as you have devoted yourselves to me. My father was a great King. He did his duty and now I will do mine. To the Zandoffmoochenni." He shouted and raised his glass to the crowd. They cheered, raised theirs higher, and drank. Draco tried to get Hermione to drink then. He placed the cup to her lips and tried to force her to except it. "What are you doing?" he hissed at her. "Why wont you drink the blood?"

Hermione couldn't answer him because she knew that the moment she opened her mouth, he would feed her. "If you want to shame me tonight, if that is your game, then you may leave now and go to our room. Await me there. I will come shortly and we will discuss your need for an affair so soon after our bonding. Maybe we could improve on that."

Still, Hermione didn't say a word. Draco stopped talking to her when he noticed that some of the guests were starting to pay attention to what was being said. Draco let go of her and ordered her to go to the master chamber loud enough for all the guests to hear. They all started cheering, thinking that their King and Queen could not get enough of each other. When in reality, Hermione had had enough of her cocky King.

…..

"Why is he so arrogant? I just want to kill him." Hermione raged at Sally. She was pacing back and fourth in her room while Sally was trying to get her into a nightgown. "He had the nerve to order me about in front of everyone. And then, and then, I actually obeyed him. It was that damn ring I'm telling you. That damn ring made me do it. Every time he kisses it I'm screwed. All my wants just fly out the window."

"Begging your pardon Queen, but isn't that the way things are? Your Majesty, you will freeze if you don't put your night gown on." Sally said, still chasing her around the room.

"I will change myself." Hermione snatched the garment out of Sally's hand as she walked and shook it in a harsh gestured. "All I want is for Draco to pay attention to what I have to say. All I want is for someone to listen and stop treating me like I am any different as a vampire than I was as a human. Answer this Sally, why does everyone treat me differently? I can't even talk to who I want to talk to and I can't even free my best friend from a room she doesn't want to be in, even though I am this Queen whom everyone fears." Hermione stopped her pacing and turned to the woman, gesturing for an answer with the gown she held in her fist.

"Life is different in death because you are now our Queen, Your _Majeste_." Sally began. "We treat you with respect. Our King told us not to worry you with your friend because he didn't want you upset with the babe."

Hermione growled and threw the nightdress onto the bed, only to resume pacing with a reckless restraint.

"Leave Sally," a deep voice ordered, coming from the doorway. Sally immediately curtsied and left. Hermione didn't stop pacing or even look at Draco, the man who she despised for the time being. "What are you filling the poor girl's head with Hermione?" He asked as he began undressing.

"Nothing much. Just a list of your faults." Somehow, her comment amused Draco. He couldn't hide his grin.

"I see. And might you want to tell me your thoughts about my faults?"

"No." she said. Hermione turned to face him and noticed that he had taken his shirt off, exposing his lean hard-muscled back. She blinked fast to keep from dreaming and to help get her set on her goal again. This was really her husband; she couldn't believe her luck.

"I am not sleeping here tonight." Hermione determined. "I think I will go and sleep in Ginny's chamber. I will tell the guards to relay any messages I have for you, but there might not be many, because I don't think that you are that significant a person to tell anything to or to ask anything of." She said. Hermione waked to the door and opened it. She was half way out when she turned to look back at Draco. He was getting into bed, stark naked. He didn't even look like he cared where she went. "Draco?" she asked with uncertainty.

"Are you done carrying on like an adolescent of no more than 100 years?"

"I'm twenty-six. I don't even think that I turned two yet in vampire years." Gone was Hermione's vulnerability. She glared at Draco's horizontal form, then pulled the door closed behind her. Hermione tried to breath through her angry tears. She was oblivious to everything around her. She didn't care that there were guards standing on either side of her, or that Draco was just a door away. She gave up after a minute, and let her tears fall, eyes tightly shut. With the release of her emotions, Hermione also let her strength go. She rested her forehead against the hard wood of the door before she turned and sank to the ground. She was certain that even the guards at her sides, didn't care about her plight. As statutes were meant to, the guards never moved. As though, she didn't exist, like she meant nothing, Hermione mused. She was tired of it.

Hermione was in the throes of her misery, when the door opened and she fell backwards. Backwards, into Draco's strong arms. Somehow, her husband had known she was sitting on the ground. He didn't say a word to her, nor she to him, but he took her up against his chest like she weighed little over a feather, and carried her to their bed. One of the guards shut the door behind them.

"Draco?"

"What?"

"Why is it that I hate it here? Why won't you listen to me or let me talk to anyone?" she sighed against him as he lay her down. Draco curled his body around hers.

"You'll settle in." his voice was soft, scratchy, but soothing. "If you want to change something in the kingdom you have just to ask. If you want to talk to someone, then talk. I don't know why you throw fits every night. You have only been pregnant for a short while. You have only been a vampire for a short while. I have tried to spare you and your friend from the emotion you will feel at having to become enemies. I have also given that some thought. Maybe she could remain with us as our prisoner. My enemy cannot marry anyone but her now that he has claimed her. He would also suffer greatly if she stayed here. But then," Draco sighed, "he would rage war with the Kingdom. I cannot have that when we are so recently bonded. The heir needs me to keep it safe and it would hardly be safe to have a war raged against us when my son is yet to be born."

Hermione jumped out of bed so fast the bed shook with the movement. "Like that," she cried out in anger. "Draco? What happened to you? Ever since we have been married you have acted cold toward me. I hate it. I want the other Draco back. This is not the man I love. I want the man I had before. Give me him." Hermione started pacing again. She swore she would run a hole through the floor if she didn't get what she wanted. She just couldn't seem to stop the erratic movement.

"Hermione, come to bed."

Hermione stared at him for a minute. She considered the way he had said it. It wasn't an order, just a request by the man she had married. Just a shadow of the man she had loved. There was no coldness in his tone; there was no order or spite, just a request. He probably just didn't want to waste his breath on commanding her. It sounded sweet and caring. And before Hermione even thought about whether she should obey it or not, she was. Hermione lay bed beside Draco and let him take her into his arms, she realized then, that this was just a new way that Draco could get her to do what he wanted, the scheming butthead. Hermione snuggled close.

* * *

_Author's Note: If you like _Vampire and Prey_, check out my other DHr vampire story, _Their Destiny_._

_Special thanks to_ voldyismyfather _for reviewing my third chapter. I'm glad you loved it. I hope you love this one just as much._


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

As the season wore on and the weeks went by, the impending winter showed it's face. The breeze began to crisp the leaves. Those leaves fell from the trees as though they had been waiting to die their entire life. Hermione compared her life to those leaves. She too, had started to welcome her new status.

The castle had ceased to be a cold block of marble and brick for Hermione. Though she was still not feeling very welcome, by Draco anyway, she had formed a close bond with Sally. And Sally, was often the receiver of Hermione's complaints about Draco. In the four short weeks since the party, Sally had heard all about how insufferable and disagreeable Draco was.

Draco still refused to tell Hermione where he kept Ginny, and Ginny remained Hermione's main concern. In fact, every time Hermione tried to remind Draco that he was the one who wanted her to come to him for any problems she might have, she usually ended up in a very pleasurable spot beneath him. Draco barely had time for her other than to make love to her.

Hermione could swear that she spent more time seeing Draco above her, than she did seeing him standing in front of her. Not that she minded much, but, by the time he had satisfied both their needs, she had already forgotten what she wanted of him in the first place, which, she had to admit to herself, was probably his intention from the start.

Because of the fact that Draco had so little time to spare a Queen, Hermione had turned to his adviser and best friend, Gabriel, for every other concern she had. Gabriel provided witty conversation and great advice. Hermione and Gabriel had also become close friends. In fact, Gabriel and Sally were the only two vampires who knew that Hermione had gone on an eating strike. They both thought her foolish. What made things worse, was that Draco hadn't even seemed to notice. Nobody, save whom she'd told her plan to, had. Hermione had been feeling so very weak and moody from the lack of food and her growing pregnancy, that she would snap at everyone and often walk by the room where the food was prepared, just to smell the blood being soaked into the night's dinner. She was also starting to get very angry and frustrated because of what she was putting herself through for the human race.

In fact, she sometimes felt that it might be a waste. At times, she would even start to wonder what the humans had ever done for her to deserve her gratitude. But then she would blame her bad thoughts on the golden band still sitting on her finger, and get all the more angered. During nights though, she got her due. She slept more and would sometimes purposefully fall asleep just as Draco came to bed. She knew that by denying him his pleasure, she would also be denying herself pleasure, but she just couldn't stop punishing him for all the bad things she was experiencing in this new life. Hermione knew that she was being unreasonable with her behavior toward Draco, she knew that he had done a lot of things that were kind for her too, but she tried to ignore those things because they didn't help her when all she wanted to do was rage against him. She felt every day, the power of the ring turning her against everything that she believed in. Every day, she tried to get it off of her finger by using various methods. And every day, Gabriel would tell her it was a useless effort.

The worst part of her predicament, was that despite the time she had spent in the castle, Ginny was still very well hidden. Hermione searched almost every day for Ginny. She asked everyone she came across, pointed questions about what she was now calling 'Ginny's prison.' She even went so far as to tell them that if those questions didn't come with satisfactory answers, then she was going to be very displeased. The only problem with her threats, was the fact that when her victims asked her what she was going to do to them after she was displeased, she didn't ever have a ready answer. What could she do to scare them into telling her? How could she punish them when they didn't?

One day she was walking in the gardens along side beautiful flowers, when an unexpected source of information came to her.

"My mommy planted these flowers a long time ago." A small voice said.

"Did she now." Hermione commented. She looked around for the little girl who'd spoken. "Where are you?" she asked, spotting the child behind the brush.

The little girl stepped out from behind rose bush, her hands in her dress pockets, her feet, shuffling the dirt. "Sorry your _Majeste_. I don't want to be bad."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked her.

"I'm not supposed to be here with you." She said. "I'm going to get grounded now. The King will not be happy."

"What are you talking about little one? Why would your King not be happy with you? Why do you think that you aren't allowed to talk to me?"

"Because the King told me that you will be nice to me and then try to get our enemy out of the tower. That is why. I am not supposed to upset you or be by you when you want to be alone. I will go now and tell my King that I didn't mean to be bad but I saw you in my mommy's flowers."

"I am sure this is okay." Hermione soothed. "You don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to tell me. I do like you though. Not many people talk to me here."

"Oh I will talk to you if that is what you order Queen." The little girl squeaked.

What kind of life had she known? This little innocent looked ready to do anything that she was told to do whether she wanted to or not.

"Will your mommy mind?"

"My mommy died when I was born twenty-seven years ago Queen." The girl said.

Really? The child didn't look more than six years old. Hermione wasn't sure she would ever get used to the age differences here. Hermione thought about her own mother and how she had died in child birth too. Suddenly, she didn't want to give birth to this baby anymore. She wanted to just stay pregnant until she died. Of course when she thought about it, that would mean that she would stay pregnant until she killed herself with that sword or had finally starved herself to death, which looked like a real possibility if she didn't start thinking of a new plan to force Draco to notice her.

"Who takes care of you now?" she asked in polite awareness.

"The King." The child said, skipping over to her side. She had the cutest little body and the biggest brown eyes. Her dress, a pale yellow confection, danced around her ankles with each bounce she made.

"Why the King?" Hermione questioned, bringing her thoughts back on track. "Why not your other relatives?" If nobody died here unless they wanted too, then wouldn't her relatives still be alive?

"My King takes care of me because I am his."

Now Hermione was even more confused. Of course the child were part of his people. All of the Zandoffmochenie were their people. Was there a secret that she did no yet know about? Did Draco really have a soft heart and take in orphans as his own? -But what about the child's father? Then it hit her. Draco could be the child's father.

"What is your name?" she asked with a voice that sounded like she had just drank sour milk and couldn't get the taste out of her mouth.

"Annabell your _Majeste_."

"Annabell is the King your Daddy?"

"The King is my King. I am told that I came from him but he is only my King because he was too young and not bonded to my mommy. He takes care of me but he is only my King not my daddy. I don't have one of those."

"Oh yes you do." Hermione hissed. "Would you let me take your hand or do you only wish to follow close behind me?" She asked seething with newfound anger and impatience.

"What ever you wish me to do Queen." The girl whispered. She sounded scared but Hermione didn't have time to fix that right now. She was done with waiting. She picked the little girl up into her arms and rushed her past all of the people staring at them. She practically ran out of the miniature park that they were in and through the streets with the small shops that were made along side them. People stared and gawked at their Queen but once again Hermione was too angered to care. She rushed up the steps to the castle and past the guards. They didn't stop her. Why would she think they would try? They never even talk her. Not even when she tried to talk to them.

Only the guards that were situated outside her husband's private office showed any interest in her, and that was only to stop her. Even they didn't speak to her, but only held out their arms out to stop her from moving forward. "Draco." She demanded in a hard voice. The guards showed no hint or recognition in their faces at what she had said, but one of them pointed to the wall opposite the door in a silent command that she not disturb her King.

Hermione hissed and set the little girl down. "I will tell you this once and once only so you better listen good. I am pregnant and hormonal and will do just about anything that I wouldn't do if I weren't. This includes harming one of you. If you do not let me pass or at least get my husband, or 'King' for me, then I will tell him in our next meeting that I want to have you two placed in the tower for not obeying a direct order. Don't think that I wont. He will do it too because he will not want to have guards keep his wife from speaking to him when she has a major problem like the one she has right now!" she shouted. Hermione glared at the solders.

"What do you want wife." Draco commanded from behind her.

Hermione was mortified. Here she was yelling her head off at these two men, when all along her husband had been inside the room behind the wall that they had pointed her too. She turned around to face Draco, determined that she let none of her embarrassment show in her face. Draco was indeed standing just inside the newly opened doorway, with his mother!

"Tell me then 'wife'" he said stressing the word. "What is so important that you had to threaten my two best men with a tower that you are not supposed to know about?"

"Well, Draco." Hermione said as calmly as she could. "You could hardly expect me to never find out where you have stashed my best friend. And if you don't mind my saying so, I have a bone to pick with you."

"A bone?" asked the former Queen. "We are not having anything with bones in it for dinner. I must talk to cook." She took herself off with a swish of skirts.

"What bone my Queen?" Draco said more softly as if her anger and his irritation did not exist.

"Come here Annabell." She ordered. The child did and Hermione ordered and Hermione took her hand. "206 bones to be exact. Why didn't you tell me that I had a daughter?"

Draco took hold of her arm and pulled her and Annabell into the room he had just exited. "How do you know about Annabell?" he demanded angry again.

"I was in the gardens in the park and that is where we met. She is terrified of you Draco! She thinks that you will punish her because she talked to me. Tell her that that is not true." Hermione demanded in a voice worthy of any commander of his army.

Draco glared at Hermione and then down at the cowering child. He didn't owe them any kind of explanation. He was the King here. They were not but his servants. Still, he did care for them both in a way that he cared not for anyone but his own parents. He didn't like the fact that Annabell had said that he would punish her for talking to Hermione. The most he would have done would have been to send the child to bed without dinner. That was hardly a punishment. And then there was his Queen who was boldly glaring at him, while he glared back, trying to stare some sense into her.

He then returned his gaze to Annabell. She didn't look terrified, just upset because she had been caught doing what she knew she wasn't supposed to be doing. The little heathen. Well, he knew her as well as any father knew their child, she would play off of Hermione's soft spots now until Hermione realized what she was doing. He wouldn't tell Hermione either. No, she would have to figure out his daughter's plan all on her own. He had told Annabell to stay away from her new mother. He didn't want Hermione to get too upset about his daughter until after she had delivered his son. She was already too tied up in her arguments and complaints about her new life as it was, let alone adding a daughter to her list of worries.

In two days he would take Ginny to the other castle and leave her there. Then he would come back and tell his Queen to stop worrying about her friend and looking for her because she was no longer in the kingdom. Damnation, why wouldn't she just let him be with his plans? Draco had to teach her that she wouldn't always get her way with him or get to spend a lot of time trying to manipulate him. He had to get Hermione to trust him and be content with her new life. He just didn't know how long he would be able to stand by and watch as she yet again refused a meal. He didn't know how long he could ignore her pleas and concerns for her friend. He didn't know how long he could come to bed in the morning hours and not have her to sleep with but only next to.

Draco couldn't believe that Annabell had disobeyed an out and out order not to approach her stepmother. He couldn't blame her for being curious, but he wanted to ease Hermione into the idea first. Draco knew that Hermione would be upset for the way the child was looked at by the clan. He for some reason, didn't want her to be upset. Oh well, she knew about his misbehaving daughter now. No turning back. And if the smug smile on his twenty-seven-year-old's mouth was any indication, she knew it too.

"Draco." Hermione growled. Draco snapped out of his trance. "You need to tell 'your daughter' that you will not punish her for talking to me. That is after all, a stupid reason to punish anyone. Well, tell her! And I want to know why you don't acknowledge her as your daughter. That is going to have to change Draco. She is your daughter and because we are married she is now mine too. I demand that treatment and acknowledgment from you." She practically yelled.

Draco couldn't take it any more. He burst into laughter and sank down in his desk chair. He waved for Annabell to come to him and the child skipped over. She sat on Draco's knee and turned to Hermione with a big smile on her face. "Daddy's laughing. You don't have to worry about getting grounded if Daddy laughs." She said.

Hermione was stunned. 'Daddy?' She should have known. The child had said grounded now that she thought back to it, not punish. Draco did acknowledge his daughter as his own. That was a relief. One less battle she had to fight.

"My daughter has you wrapped around her little finger already. Don't you Anna?" The girl nodded.

Hermione groaned. "What is going on here Draco? You never told me that you had a child."

"No I didn't. I didn't want the news to upset you while you were pregnant. I wasn't sure how you would react when I told you the full story about Anna. I knew you would accept her, but I wasn't sure what you would do when you found out that she isn't accepted as my daughter by my people and that they don't even know that I accept her."

Hermione sank down into the closest chair available. "Why isn't she accepted by your people?" she asked weakly as if she could handle no more surprises and wanted to get this one over with.

"Leianne was already a vampire and my mistress for many weeks. I was not bonded to her and I could not ever be. Annabell is the first girl ever to be born by a vampire." Draco turned to his child. "Anna why don't you go and help your grandmother in the kitchen while I talk to your stepmother."

"Okay daddy." She said. She jumped off of his lap and rushed out of the door. When it closed behind her, Draco started talking again.

"When a male vampire wishes to be bonded, he must go into the world and look for a woman he wants to bond with. First he must marry her and then he bonds with her here as we did. The woman must be willing to marry first though, or we do not bond the couple. Then we erase her existence from the human's minds or plant the thought of her death in it and the woman comes here to live. Vampires only bare sons and when they are old enough the cycle starts all over again. I took a mistress though. Her bondage did not go well and her mate starved himself to death."

"But that is so sad!" Hermione exclaimed enthralled.

"Yes. It is. Many here hated her for that and she was ridiculed and so on. My father feared that the anger towards her was escalating so he gave her a room here in the castle to stay in and then it happened. A few weeks went by and everything was well inside the castle. We didn't expect her to get pregnant. Nine months later Annabell was born because of the union of the Prince, to a vampire he loved but could not bond with. Nobody knows what was different with this woman than the rest. She drove her mate to starve to death and she committed a sin with me only to have a child that was a female later. My clan think that Annabell is cursed and do not accept her as my child, they think that Leianne got what she deserved."

"She did not." Hermione slammed her fist on her knee, which the pain then made her regret.. "Do you think that any woman who dies in child birth gets what she deserves?"

"No Hermione, I do not believe that. It is not right that a vampire should feel things for his mate; it is not common. Anyone who may feel something for their mate, keep it to him or herself. But I loved Leianne and I think that is why the King's of the past took her away and left me without a male to rule in my place. My father demanded that I go out and find my Queen then. He told me that if I ever wanted to please the past kings, whom are the equivalent to your old Gods, and produce an heir, then I would have to bond as was natural.

"He told me that he knew what I felt when Leianne died because he didn't know how he could live should my mother have died the day I was born.

"The day I saw your mother, I knew that I had to have you. I knew you were going to be born a female. Your mother looked so much like Leianne that I thought she was. Your mother never died in childbirth, which is what they planted into the heads of the humans who knew her. What really happened was that some vampires from the other kingdom killed her out of spite. They had to wait until you were born of course, because if anything happened to you after I had claimed you, then the Kings would have punished the offenders, but after you were born, they killed her."

Hermione started to cry as she listened to Draco. She didn't want to hear this new truth about her mother's death. She felt so angry and wanted to deny it, but she knew Draco wasn't lying to her.

"They killed her because I liked the look of her. I have been protecting you since the day you were born. No vampire has ever come near you; no vampire has ever touched you. Only me. Before I even met you, I knew that I couldn't love you. Every time a vampire has certain feelings for another, they die. I will not love you Hermione. I suggest that you not love me either because by the time that that babe is born, you will die if you love me. Now that I have told you this you will understand better how life is run here. You will have my child, and then you will have another, and another. That is your only duty to this kingdom as my Queen."

Hermione, stunned, didn't say a word.

Draco eased forward in his chair, "Now I have wasted all of this time with you and will have to make up for it. Leave now and see about making sure that that babe is happy."

"How could you be so cold-blooded?" Hermione shrieked. "The way you live is disgusting. You as good as killed my mother because of your lust. You never cared for me." She raged. "You never cared for anyone close to me."

"That is true that I never cared for you or anyone close to you Hermione. I would not let them die if I could prevent it. But it is not in my power to do anything about your friend. She and you just died according to what the humans now believe. Your bodies are in the ground. Well, perfect mind mirages." He would not buckle. He would not tell her that he cared for her. He could not afford to, knowing that the Kings would kill her if he did. The Kings couldn't find out. He had to make her hate him or the minute that she gave birth, they would kill her.

Hermione left Draco's office in a rush of skirts and Draco paced the floor. He had told her the truth, he couldn't love her. He just didn't understand this incredible feeling in his chest. It felt strange and he couldn't even explain what it was. Was it ache that he felt? Was it pain? He couldn't understand it. Were these the feelings that Hermione had told him about when she was human? Of course Draco felt bad about what was happening, but only because it was logically correct to, wasn't it? He had never felt emotion of this degree before now. Just telling Hermione that she had never meant anything to him was very hard to do. He just hoped that he was able to tell her with a straight face.

Draco sat back in his chair and rubbed his forehead in an agitated gesture. With Leianne he had felt the same joy that he was now feeling with his Queen, but when she had died all the feeling had left his body. He had become once again emotionless when it came to pain. The Kings had sent him a message then. They didn't want traditions or times to change. They had warned his parents with the threat of his mother's death. They had warned him with Leianne's death and Annabell's sex. Was this -pain that he felt, also a sign of the impending death of his Queen? Draco didn't want to think of that ever. The number one things that he had to do on his list had now increased ten-fold. He had to arrest Ferdinand McGregor for not obeying a direct order from his King, he had to delegate land between three of his followers, he had to take Ginny to his enemy, he had to get his army ready for some hunting pleasure, and lastly, he had to solve the many problems that concerned his Queen.

Well, Draco thought, that needed to be addressed first. He needed to make sure that he explained to Hermione that her friend would be all right, he needed to train her to not be so obvious in her demands to him, after all, he didn't want the entire clan knowing that he couldn't handle his Queen. He needed to schedule meeting dates or times when he would be available to listen to her when she had ideas for improvements in the kingdom's economy. Draco instinctively knew that if he waited until nighttime, his Queen would be fast asleep and unable to complain to him. At most times, he would count that as a blessing, but for some reason he didn't want to leave Hermione out of the problems he had to solve. Draco wanted to listen to her suggestions and, unlike past Kings, he wanted her opinions on the matters. Also on his top list of thinks to accomplish, was getting the stubborn woman to eat, and most importantly, getting her to stop loving him.

Leianne's bonding mate had only lasted six months before he'd become raving mad and had to be put into isolation in the castle dungeons to finish his starvation without disturbing the rest of the population. Draco had seen Hermione look almost faint at the dinning table several times lately. He also knew that the castle people had noticed. Dracp claimed that it was her growing pregnancy that was making her not hungry. But, he had seen her several times fawning over passed plates and glancing over at him from across the long length of table to see if he realized that she was not eating. So far as he knew, she had not eaten since she had killed her friend. Other than her eating habits, Hermione was having a normal pregnancy, or so Mandala, the midwife and spy he had set on her, had told him. And now, thrown in with his number one issues, was his daughter.

Draco stood and walked over to the fireplace. He leaned against the mantle and stared at the painting he'd had done of his daughter. Annabell was only fifteen when he had this painting done of her. The painting, rather than a photograph, was how he preferred life here. Old-fashioned instead of the world his Queen had come from. This was the time of his mother. This was how his father and all past Kings had preferred it, how he preferred it. Why was he unwilling to break with this tradition, but willing to confide in Hermione? Draco took the portrait in his hand and walked back behind his desk to sit once again in the chair of power. He pulled the bell rope hanging beside him and one of his solders immediately opened and stood just inside the doorway waiting for his orders. Draco stared at the portrait just a moment more before he looked up and instructed the guard to send for Annabell. The guard immediately left the presence of the King in order to search for her.

It didn't take long to find Annabell, for the child was lurking near his office doors itching to bother him anyway. The little girl pranced up to him where he sat and stood most formally in front of him until he ordered the guard back to his post. The minute the door closed, Annabell threw herself onto his lap with a bounce and smiled up at him.

"So what do you think about your stepmother Anna?" he asked tonelessly.

Annabell gave him a look that suggested she thought that he was acting strangely and stroked her chin to portray a picture of a thought process similar to that of a seemingly hard decision, only in a bid to bring a grin to her father's face of course. This act did not work however, and Annabell glared her displeasure at him instead. Draco just stared stone–faced at her and asked her to think thoroughly.

Finally Annabell answered. "I like her. She is loud and does strange things but she wasn't mad at me for talking to her. She was not good though because she didn't nod to her people when she passed them Daddy. No she didn't," she rushed on when she thought he was going to argue with her. "She ran passed them like she was not supposed to do and she shouted at the guards in front of your private place. I know that she has the power to do that but she raised her voice and talked back to you. You don't ever let anyone do that Daddy. I still like her though. Please don't ground her Daddy or she will hate me."

"No she will not Anna." Draco said smoothing her hair back. "She won't be mad at you and she is not in trouble. I haven't taught her how to behave yet. I need you to do something top secret Anna." Draco whispered as if they could be overheard. "I need you to get to know her better and I need you to get her to eat. But you cannot tell her that is the plan okay. You can tell her that you want to get to know her better but you cannot tell her that you want her to eat."

"Why Daddy? I'm sorry for being bad and questioning your orders but daddy isn't she eating?"

"No she is not and she will make herself sick if she doesn't start. Invite her to one of your blood parties. I think she will eat then but remember this is top secret."

"Oh like the enemy Queen in the tower Daddy?"

"Yes." Draco replied.

"Okay then, I will. What do you want me to do?"

"Whatever you want. I don't want her to worry and I don't want her to bother me. If she doesn't come to me with her worries then I know you have done your job well and I will give you a reward."

"Oh! A reward? Can I choose it?"

"Maybe. I want her eating first though okay Anna?"

"Yes Daddy." The little girl replied. "She will eat and eat and eat daddy. I will make sure she does? I really like her Daddy she is funny. I think you chose a good mommy and Queen."

"Don't forget though Anna that when you are not alone with her you still need to address her as Queen. I will be displeased if I need to deal with the clan's outrage against you because you called me Daddy in public again. Promise and then you may leave me to my work."

"I promise Daddy."

* * *

_Author's Note:_ You know, I didn't realize I'd posted this chapter until I got tons of story alert messages in my email this morning? I was very out of it last night, haha. Anyway, I thank voldyismyfather for again being my one and only reviewer for my last chapter.

PS: If you like this DHr fic, I have another vampire DHr fic by the name of Their Destiny. Check it out.

And as always, please let me know what you think.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Such a strange custom they had, Hermione pondered angrily as she waltzed from Draco's office. They couldn't love? It seemed like she lived in some emotionally stunted world. So these King Gods, whom she assumed were the past vampire kings, killed anyone who fell in love with each other. Oh no, they killed only the women. Sexist fiends. So the slivy of the speech Draco gave her earlier was that they couldn't love each other because she would die in the end, Draco's daughter was cursed because he slept with a female vampire that he had feelings for. Oh, and because Annabell was the first female ever to be born a vampire. And now Hermione knew that her own mother died because the evil part of her new race wanted to anger their enemy, her King –husband. Oh lord.

Hermione felt the pain of losing her mother even more now that she knew the truth about what happened to her. She wanted to go over to the other kingdom and kill every last one of those damn vampires. But first she had to get to know her daughter, who inconsequently, was older than herself.

After twenty minutes of searching, Hermione still didn't find Annabell in the castle. So she decided that she was going to go in search of Ginny again. But this time she knew where she was going.

Hermione waltzed directly into her mother-in-law's room first, just to see if she would be able to persuade her into a short walk to the towers. She figured that her mother-in-law might be a little more sympathetic towards her cause. In fact, the only problem that had occurred with her plan, was that her mother-in-law wasn't in the room. So that option was closed. Hermione then went to her own quarters and rang for Sally. Sally immediately appeared, knocking on her door. Hermione opened it and Sally curtsied as usual. "Yes Queen?" Hermione grit her teeth. She pulled Sally into the room by her hand and closed the door.

"I know that Ginny is in the tower and I demand that you take me to her. I command you as my subject but also request it of you as my friend.

Sally had never seen her Queen like this before. Her Queen usually ordered her to stop being formal with her, and that was the only order she ever gave anyone. Sally could tell that her Queen was truly upset this afternoon however. "I am sorry Queen but my orders are to never take you to see the enemy. Orders directly from my King, Your _Majeste_."

"I changed them just now. I demand this. If you do not take me to her right now Sally I will have you put in the dungeon with the lowest criminals. I swear it Sally and I am not joking. I don't want to do it but I will. Take me to Ginny!"

"I cannot Queen."

Tears of frustration ran down Hermione's face and she quickly wiped the evidence of such a weakness away. In doing so she missed the look on Sally's face.

Sally was horrified. She had never actually seen water flow from someone's eyes before, as she'd been adopted out of the human race when she was scarcely a year old and bonded with the abusive twenty-year-old son of a very wealthy noble. Oh she's heard of this water of course, but she'd never actually experienced it or seen it. Even when her bonding mate emotionally beat her down because she would not have been his choice. She'd heard that it was a human affliction that represented pain and suffering. She'd been told that this water represented weakness in the human race. She had never known a vampire to feel such things. Vampires didn't feel. Well, now that Sally thought about it, they did have minor feelings, feelings of happiness and such. She'd been happy when the former King had brought her to live in the castle and out of the reach of her mate. But these feeling were never felt over another vampire. It was forbidden. Still, she could not disobey an order from her King. Not even for the Queen who had treated her so kindly.

"Fine." Hermione said as if she were a child not getting her way. "Then I will go and sleep with the guards to get him to talk to me and then I will find out how to get to the tower." Hermione swept from the room leaving the stunned maid behind.

She next went to Gabriel to see if he would help. She knew he wouldn't and that who she really needed was the Queen but she decided that it couldn't hurt to try him. She found Gabriel in the library looking for a book. He was startled when she popped in front of him out of nowhere. "Gabriel." She started in a commanding voice. Gabriel seemed prepared for her demand before he even knew what it was. "I need you to take me to Ginny right away. Just to the towers. Yes I know about them." She added when he looked at her in surprise. She decided to press her advantage. "I need to speak with her now." She turned and started waking toward the door as if he would immediately follow her. "Well," she demanded when he hadn't moved a muscle.

"My Queen," Gabriel began.

"Oh don't give me that crap about not disobeying Draco's order, because he told me to find you and tell you that you can take me to her." When he still looked to hesitate however, she got even more impatient. "Oh please, how do you think I know about the tower in the first place if Draco hadn't told me?" That must have been the swaying information because Gabriel calmed.

"Alright then Your _Majeste_. Follow me." He stepped out of the door and waited for her to follow. Gabriel took her around a series of corners and curves. On her own, Hermione was sure she would never have found the tower. He took her through one secret door after another and by the time they had finished their walk in silence, she was standing in a corridor full of guards lining the halls. They each were built and fierce-looking. None of them glanced her way as she walked through the hall just in front of Gabriel, but she could tell that they were curious and itching to look in her direction as she made her way.

Hermione halted at the end of the long hall, in front of four guards who were blocking her passage through the door. "Give way by order of the Queen." She growled. She was surprised herself that she had given that order so harshly but they had to know that she meant business. Besides, she was terrified about how she would find Ginny. Would her friend be in chains locked to a wall with rats and bread on a plate far out of her reach? She had to know. Still, the guards didn't show physically that they had heard her. So she tried what she had been forced to do a lot lately, plain trickery. "Give way by the orders of the King's wish." They gave way. But she noted, not before looking for conformation from Gabriel's nodding head. She would have to remedy that one of these days.

As Hermione opened the door with caution, she began to cry again. She couldn't seem to help it. Her friend had been locked up in this tower for four months. She stepped into the room and tried to close the door for privacy. It didn't work. As soon as she tried to shut them out, all of the guards filed into the room to stand around it's perimeter, offering her protection from what they perceived as a threat. Two guards also stood on either side of her as she walked further into the room to search for her friend. Even when she glared at them, they paid no attention and continued to follow. Hermione gave up.

She looked around her friend's containment with interest. It wasn't as bad as she'd first thought it would be. This room was as big as her old apartment. It was elegantly furnished too. There were several books on a shelf and half of them were lying around the room as if they had been recently read and not returned yet. When she looked closer she saw her friend. Ginny was sitting in a rocking chair staring out of a giant window at the sunset. "Just put the food try on the end table Mandala if you would. I'm not that hungry tonight. Are you early or is it just me?"

Hermione couldn't say a word. She was overwhelmed with relief and happiness.

__

"There is nothing I can do. I feel so hopeless."

"You shouldn't feel hopeless. Everything will be fine."

Bright lights, white walls.

"Mandala?" Ginny questioned again. She turned around then. She gasped. "Hermione!" Ginny rushed up to her friend as soon as she saw her. Hermione's guards wouldn't let her make physical contact though and held out their hands to ward her off. Ginny stopped in her tracks. "Oh Hermione I was so worried about you. When Mandala told me what was going on and about you I was so scared. Are you okay? Speak to me."

"Oh Ginny." Hermione rushed the rest of the way to her friend and hugged her tightly before her two guards could force Ginny to let go of her. They then held onto both of Ginny's arms to hold her away from Hermione. "Release her this instant." She ordered.

"It's okay Hermione." Ginny smiled a small smile. "It felt good while it lasted. I haven't had a hug in a long while. Do you realize that our families and friends both think that we're dead?"

"I know. I have been so worried for you Gin. I haven't slept in a long while. I have searched for you every day. Nobody would tell me where you were or how you were being treated or anything. The only thing that I knew was that Draco was going to take you to the other kingdom to marry our sworn enemy and that we would only see each other again when he killed the man."

Hermione then noticed how sick her friend looked. "What is it Gin. Gin!"

"What is going to happen to me Hermione? Nobody told me why I was here just that I would be out soon."

"Oh, Ginny. What do you know?"

"That I was brought here for a short time, that I wouldn't be hurt while I was here, and that I am now a vampire. I have to admit that I have had time to get used to the idea and I have read history books on vampire theories so I am not as scared as I was when I was first told. I didn't believe them at first but then I started feel strange and cravings and everything and…what did you say about Draco and kingdoms?"

"Oh Ginny I am so sorry." Hermione glared at her guards. "Get out of this room. I demand it Queen to subjects. Get out now! –Or I will demand that punishment should be met out accordingly." None of her guards would listen to her. "I need a solder who has honor, discipline, and a history of obeying orders to stand before me. I have a special task that I need him to follow through with." Every soldier in the room moved forward a step. "You." She demanded of the nearest, "What is your name?" she asked. The man didn't answer her. She stepped up to the handsome man. "Do you have a wife sir?" she demanded. The man just looked forward. "Don't answer me then. You will just have to deal with her then, if what I am about to do will upset her, as I am sure it will." With that said, Hermione grabbed his head and leaned forward on her tiptoes to kiss him full on the mouth for all of two brief seconds. "Now," she said in a commanding voice ignoring Ginny's gasp and Gabriel's grin. "We are officially lovers. Tell me your name. I demand the English language from my lover."

The solder wasn't phased in the least. He did show signs of a smile though and looking around the room showed that some of the other solders were trying to hold back theirs as well. "Well?" she demanded again. "This is what I was told. I was told that unless I took solders to bed then they wouldn't talk to me so I have formally announced it. Now I demand for the final time sir, what your name is or I will give this special task to another."

The disciplined man let his smile show this time and told her. "Nicolas Your _Majeste_."

Hermione grunted in a manly satisfied fashion and smiled back. "Now Nicolas I demand that you to take all of these men from this room this instant and place them all in the dungeon until I am able to come down there and deliver my lecture about obedience to them. You may keep guard there and Gabriel can guard me outside this door. Leave now all of you by order of the Queen."

"I don't think that they are going to listen Mione." Gillian laughed. "You had me going there. I think that you have turned as nuts as myself. I have been completely miserable here. My family thinks that I am dead and apparently now I am set up to marry a stranger that you call enemy. This is great. Truly it is."

Just then Mandala came into the room with Ginny's dinner. She took one look at the room full of people and stood still. Then she noticed her Queen. "Your _Majeste_." She curtsied, tray in hand. Hermione bowed her head in acknowledgment. Her head started to spin as Mandala set the tray full of blood-soaked raw meet and vegetables onto the table next to her. She took one look at the delicious meal and sank down to the floor in a dead faint.

Draco got the news of his Queen's faint almost immediately. He was frantic to get to her. When he realized where she was he was even more concerned, and even more angry.

"Hermione." He demanded in a harsh voice to the woman lying on the tower floor. "Hand me that drink," he ordered the nearest solder.

"What is wrong with her Draco?" Ginny asked as the guards restrained her from across the room.

Draco looked up at the use of his name. "I am King to you." He demanded once again. "Nothing." He said in a softer voice. "She is pregnant and hasn't eaten in weeks." Draco tilted Hermione's head back and slowly filled her mouth with blood. Hermione came awake sputtering.

She glared up at her tormenter and savior for only a moment before grasping the goblet of blood and viciously drinking it as only the starved could. Draco lifted her up and placed her gurgling form on the bed where he towered over her. "There now, don't you feel better Queen?"

Hermione nodded her head.

"I should have made you eat a long time ago." He sighed as if he were disappointed but no more than that. "I command that you feed my child throughout the rest of the pregnancy."

Once again Hermione nodded her head. She was too dizzy from the foreign nutrients to take exception to his high-handed remarks. "Draco. I came here to say goodbye to Gill and to tell her why. Please let me do that in private."

"No. You shouldn't even be here." He turned to glare at his men.

"It's not their fault. I tricked them."

"I still will not let you alone with my enemy."

Hermione sighed. "With only you here then." She compromised. Draco considered.

"Five minutes," he degreed. "Then you will never speak to each other unless I am with you." He spoke more for his men's benefit than hers but Hermione was grateful to him all the same. "Go.' He ordered the men.

When the three of them were alone, Draco sat in the chair facing the window while Ginny scrambled on the bed.

Ginny, silent until now, demanded answers from Hermione. "Hermione what's wrong here? -With Draco. Your pregnant?" she began agitated.

"Nothing is wrong here Gin. Draco has been this way since we married…"

"But that isn't Draco?" Ginny hoped, under her breath.

"He can still hear you Gin." Hermione laughed.

"You're avoiding my questions," she wined. "Why am I your enemy Mione?"

Hermione froze. "You will never be my enemy. I will always love you as my friend."

"But Draco said…"

"I know what he said. He tells me that every day. He wants you to go away soon and I don't know when we can see each other again."

"Where?" she asked tentatively.

"Draco?" Hermione called him. "Could you please explain this to her?" Draco just stared out the window.

"Draco please! She isn't your enemy yet and she deserves to know."

Draco sighed and spoke. "I will soon take you to my enemy and he will marry you and bond with you. You will then be his Queen and birth his heirs."

"What?" Ginny asked panicked.

"Draco?" Hermione pleaded with him. She then turned to Ginny. "What Draco is trying to say is that you will marry his relative and because they hate each other, we can't be friends."

"That is the child's version yes.' Draco commented.

"But why will I marry this man?" Ginny asked him.

"Because he will demand it of you. The night that Hermione became my Queen, Blaise Zabini told the entire vampire world that he would bond with you."

"Bond?"

"Marry on vampire terms." Hermione answered.

"But why me?"

"Because you are friends with me and Draco married me."

"That doesn't make sense."

Draco was getting fed up with talking about his enemy. He wanted to get it over with so that he could yell at his solders and Hermione in private. "It doesn't have to make sense to you. The only thing that you need to know is that you are dead and you will never go back home you your family. All you need to know is that you will marry Zabini on his birthday and then have his child nine months later. All you need to know is that you will never see my Queen as long as your King lives."

"I refuse." Ginny answered.

"You can't."

"But I do."

"Oh Draco?" Hermione exclaimed when she saw he was about to argue. "You said that you never bonded a man and woman unless the woman agreed to marry and has married the man. Ginny hasn't done that."

"It won't matter in her case." He said. "I have kept her prisoner in this place with no way for Zabini to court her here. That is just a minor technicality that doesn't really apply to Princes."

"But what about what I want?" Ginny asked him.

"It doesn't matter what you want."

"This is really screwed up." Ginny shrieked. "I had a life. I had a family! I had friends. Does none of that matter? Does the only thing that matter have to do with me obeying this King?"

"Prince until you bond."

"Whatever." She said.

Hermione pushed herself into a higher sitting position and grabbed hold of her friend. "I love you Gin." She whispered as she wrapped her arms around Ginny's trembling form and rocked her.

Draco turned a blind eye to Ginny's plight and once again looked out the window.

His given five minutes were over before Hermione knew it. She was suddenly pulled out of Ginny's shaking arms, and forcibly pulled out of the tower room while Ginny watched the tower doors slam and lock.

"Draco please." Hermione pleaded with him when they were out of earshot. "She is very upset and I am the only friend that she has here."

"She doesn't need to make friends here." He said. "She will make friends in her King's kingdom. Not here."

"Draco you set her in this world where she has nothing, knows nothing, and needs every care. She will not adjust like I did. She is not like that. Let me go back to her."

"The only reason that she has any of these feelings is because you disobeyed me. Now all of my solders are going to get punished because of your insolence. You could have spared her this pain if you had followed orders. She was fine and she will be again. You will listen to me this time."

Hermione came to a complete stop, halting Draco when he tried to drag her on.

"Don't make me use this ring Queen." He warned. Hermione grit her teeth and walked on, pulling him.

"I hate you sometimes Draco you know that?"

He shrugged.

"You need to change your attitude towards me because as it is I have had to flirt and kiss every man that I want to talk too just to get them to say boo to me. And let me tell you it hasn't been bad but it can be exhausting."

Draco spun her around. "Who have you kissed?" he demanded grasping her shoulders and squeezing hard.

"It doesn't matter. The only thing that does matter is the reason why. I am supposed to command them yet nobody will take my commands. So I will eventually be forced to become a whore."

"Who will not follow your orders?" Draco demanded to know. He would punish the offenders to no end. "Any command not followed is an insult to me as well as you. They will be properly punished. You should have told me about these offenders. This is information that I demand to know."

"Draco the reason they are not listening to me is because they think that you told them that they can't follow any of the commands that I give." She hoped that she worded that right. With luck, Hermione hoped that Draco would command his solders to listen to any order that she gave, no matter what.

…..

"You will follow your Queen's orders." Draco demanded to all of his solders. They were currently lined up and looking like they would be sent into the dungeons for all time until they died from lack of food. "I will know the names of the men who have disobeyed this new order and I will have them now. Any who have not listened to my Queen stand forward from the line."

Every solder save four took a step forward. "How can this be?" Draco demanded of them. "You are all loyal and have proven to be loyal over centuries. Why are you not obeying orders? Amos I will have your answer." He demanded of the knight standing the closest to him.

"My Queen demanded something against your commands Your _Majeste_."

"And what was that?"

"To be taken to our enemy, King." He replied.

"Have you obeyed every order that she has given you that had nothing to do with our enemy?" the King asked.

"No, my lord."

"And what were those commands." Draco was starting to understand the reason why his guards were disobeying the woman.

"My Queen demanded I speak to her while I was on duty King. She also wished to play a game called Checkers with me King."

"Checkers?" Draco wandered aloud. She wished to play checkers? He made a mental note to tell her of all the things she could fill her day and night with so that she wouldn't be introducing human games as mediocre as checkers, into his Kingdom.

"Can all of her orders to you all be placed in the same category as this?"

"Yes King." The knights chanted.

"And what of you four?" He asked the remaining men. "Why haven't you been assailed with these commands?"

"Our Queen has not yet met us Your _Majeste_. We don't think that she knows about the stables we watch over as yet."

"I see. You are all dismissed as long as the Queen doesn't take you for fools again. If she claims I gave her permission for one of her adventures, ask to see my allowance on parchment first."

* * *

_Author's Note:_ Special thanks to,

_btvs22_

_voldyismyfather_

for commenting on my last chapter. I hope you both like this one as well. As always, let me know what you think.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

After her confrontation with Ginny, Hermione started straight to her rooms. She desperately needed time to think, away from the chaos of her life. She didn't get two feet out of Draco's sight however, when Annabell, tugging at the hem of her black day-dress, assailed her. "My Queen you must have blood with me." She clamored, excitement radiating from her.

Hermione looked down at her step-daughter. "Please call me Hermione, Annabell. I will never be Queen to you. I might need to act like a substitute mother every now and again but I will never be Queen."

"Then what shall I call you Queen? Hermione is too personal for me to call you because you are bonded to the King."

"Hermione," she persisted, "or if you are comfortable enough, you could call me Mother."

"I never knew my mother." Annabell whispered on a sad sigh.

"Now, what was it you wanted, lovely?" Hermione tugged at Annabell's pigtail to pull her out of her melancholy.

"I want you to have blood with me mother." The little girl urged with a smile.

"Alright... lead the way." Hermione had no idea what the child was talking about, but she figured that this was as perfect a time as any to learn all she could about her new family. Besides, if she thought anymore about Ginny's depressing situation then her head might explode.

Annabell held onto her hand and led her all the way out into the streets, through the market, and back to the place where they had first met several hours ago, the park's garden. The child had set up a magnificent tea table with two wicker-woven chairs. She had placed a makeshift lace tablecloth over the table and even went so far as to place china on top of that. "Oh Anna it's beautiful. How did you manage all of this?"

"I asked Mandala to help me. She told me that she would and she did. I put the things on the table though."

"Mandala is a very busy servant." She commented offhandedly, thinking about the times she'd heard of the many accomplishments the woman had. "So what is it you want to talk about over our…blood, Anna?"

"Only the King has ever called me Anna." She said wistfully.

"Do you mind being called that or do you want to be called Annabell?"

"Oh no that is all right mother. It is just that nobody but you and the King have ever liked me enough to call me that. Everyone else thinks that I am a curse."

"No they don't. I am sure that you are exaggerating."

"No, really, mother. Ever since I was born I have been looked at as cursed." Hermione sat down at the table and picked up the glass in front of her to sip from it. It tasted wonderful, but, she realized, it wasn't just blood. She also realized that she had broken her fast but she figured that it didn't really matter since Draco had helped her with that earlier. "Anna what is this?" she asked off topic.

"Chocolate and rabbit's blood." She announced. "I really don't like tea-blood and I know that this isn't the best blood but it was the best that I could get so fast."

Hermione hid her surprise by sipping again. "When we are done with our…chocolate-blood, you must show me where your room is."

"Why?"

"Because I might want to visit you sometime and I would like to know where to go."

"You could always tell the guard. The solder would get me for you mother. You don't need to be walking so much because of the babe. The solder would get me."

"You sound like your father and very grown up for your age." She said smiling.

"How am I supposed to sound?" Annabell asked confused, momentarily sidetracked from her goal to get her stepmother to take care of herself.

"Well I don't know. Not so very worldly." She announced. "Human children your age are not this advanced in their thinking or language."

"Are human children twenty-seven years old? I believe that I am older than you mother."

She was right. Suddenly Hermione felt like an outsider. Draco's own daughter was older than his wife!

Her startled expression must have shown quite plainly on her face because Annabell suddenly leaped out of her chair and ran across towards her. "Mama! I am sorry. Was it something that I said? Is it the babe? Should I go and get Daddy?" she cried. Hermione sat stone-faced and didn't respond. Annabell looked wildly about her and then ran off in the direction of the castle.

There were just too many shocking things happening to her today. Hermione thought. She'd found out that Ginny was doomed to the same fate, no matter what she tried to do to save her. She'd found out that Draco would refuse to love her under any circumstances. She'd found out that she had a daughter, and now, she realized that her daughter was in fact, older than she. All she could do was think. She was right in thinking that Ginny couldn't be saved. She was sure that what Draco had said was true, that her baby would be born into a loveless marriage. And she was sure that her daughter was smarter than she, a blow to her pride and new motherly role.

Hermione was so wrapped in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the man who had come out from behind the bushes.

After the dismissal of his men, Draco invited Gabriel to the library to muse. "We should have a secret word that only we know about. That way when she says that it was an order I gave her, you could ask for the password." Both men laughed. Draco found his Queen's cunning charming, if not immensely annoying. "I should just order that damn ring to make her stay out of my business." He considered. "Still, I want her to feel at least some freedom here."

"You are very kind to your Queen your _Majeste_." Gabriel chimed in. "She was very convincing when she petitioned to me about her friend. If it wasn't your plan to begin with King, than I probably would have fallen for it anyway."

"I know. And that is what scares me."

"King, King." Annabell called from on the other side of the door. She was banging on the door so hard that Draco was sure she would hurt herself.

"Allow entrance." He commanded the guard outside. Annabell burst through the opening and ran to him. She threw herself into his arms, not caring about the audience they had and whispered into his ear loud enough to wake the dead, "It's Mama, Daddy. Something is wrong with her. She was as still as stone when I left her and she wouldn't talk to me. I asked her if it was the babe but she didn't answer."

Draco was out the door before anyone could stop him. "Where is she Anna?" He demanded.

"In the park gardens."

"My Queen." The man bowed. "I heard that you are looking for a bedding partner. I am here to apply for the position."

Hermione looked at him without saying a word.

"I believe that I could pleasure you Your _Majeste_. His _Majeste_ wouldn't ever have to know if you are scared about that possibility. But I don't know why you should be since it is your right." The man knelt down next to the chair Hermione sat in and took her hand. "What think you?" he asked.

Hermione stared at the man trying to weasel his way into her bed. "No I don't believe that you have heard correctly Sir." She replied, looking the heavy man in his beady eyes. "I will not be taking lovers until after my child is born." She lied. "You are wasting your time." She said honestly.

"Well then, at least let me audition like the rest of them." He said getting bolder by the minute with no solders coming to take him away.

"No I don't believe so.'

Then without warning, the man grabbed a hold of her and lifted her out of her chair.

"What do you think that you are doing? Put me down now you bastard."

"I am not a bastard Queen. My name is Ferdinand."

Oh hell, she thought "I order you as your Queen to put me down or I will call my guards."

"They aren't here though are they? No need to get commanding on me. I just want to get to know you better." He started to walk into the trees with her lopsided in his beefy arms.

"Your King will hear about this."

"Bosh. The only thing he will hear, is about my elevated status as your lover. And he will thank me for pleasing you. He will give me the land then because I will outrank all of the others he would otherwise have to consider."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione demanded.

"Man's business Your _Majeste_." He said.

"You will explain this man's business to me. I am your Queen and the decision of who I take to my bed is mine."

"Not if I take that away from you." The man said. "Now don't look at me like that Queen. You will like what I will do in the end and beg me to become your lover."

'Are you planning to rape me?" she asked horrified by her thoughts and the up until now, un-thought-of possibility.

"No Your _Majeste_. I would never rape you. I am just going to make you want me. That would not be rape."

"It is in my book. Now put me down!" she shouted to the vile man. He just grinned down at her trapped form. Hermione started to struggle then. She slapped him and wiggled in his hold, she even scraped her nails along his face hoping to draw blood. Then she realized that he was a vampire not a human being. He couldn't bleed. And he had the strength of twenty muscle builders. What could she do?

Hermione screamed. The man cursed quite fluidly and held her mouth closed with his hand. It was then that Hermione acknowledged that she was trapped. No matter what she did to the man, he would not be in the least fazed. The man walked and he walked and when he stopped walking, they were at a small cabin set far from the village, surrounded by trees. Hermione instantly knew that someone abandoned this cabin and that nobody would find her here.

"You don't have to worry about anything Queen. I just want my fair shot is all. I want to make you like me."

"At this moment I would like to kill you. And the only way that that emotion would change is if you suddenly showed me the way back to the village."

"I will take you there myself Queen after my fair trial." The man opened the cabin's door and stepped into it. He set her down on the dusty bed, then stalked back to close and lock the door.

Hermione realized, as she looked around, that there was no way out of the small cabin. She saw a window on the far end of the cabin but she knew that it was a long shot and that she would just make this man furious if he caught her trying to escape. He was acting like kidnapping one's Queen was not against the law and punishable by, she didn't know, but it wasn't good. Then she had another thought, what if this was okay in this vampire world? How that could be possible, once again she didn't know, but she wouldn't put it past them to not have any laws, theirs being a perfect society and all. She got the chills.

"This is ridiculous. I refuse you as my lover and there is not going to be any way that you will change my mind. Your King is the only one who will ever touch me and that will be only when he isn't being a stubborn, highbred butt—" Hermione paused. "King." She amended. "Now you butthead, I order you to let me go."

"Do not you wish to at least taste me _Majeste_?" the man asked, clearly disappointed. His eyes were downcast and he was creaping toward her as if there were a possibility that if he didn't look at her she would change her mind.

Hermione was on the verge of saying hell no, but thought better of it and settled for a weak but efficient "No." He stopped, standing directly in front of her, and looked into her eyes. Hermione stood up from the bed and almost laughed when she realized that the devil was almost four inches shorter than her.

"I still feel that we could have something." He said. 'I need that land." Hermione had a moment to catch her breath before he grabbed her about the shoulders and pulled her into a kiss.

Draco ran for what seemed like forever. He could not figure out why he felt like something was wrong but it seemed that ever since he had left the castle she had been sending him mental distress signals. She had not sent him those since she had first become a vampire and was unsure about whether she should believe in it. This was a distressing sign in itself because in order for Draco to receive these signals his life-mate would have to be nearly or completely panicked. "This is where I left her King."

Draco set Annabell down. He searched the entire flower planted area for his Queen. "Where was she exactly?"

"She was sitting in this chair as still as stone when I left King."

"And where were the solders watching you two?" he demanded.

"Getting yelled at by you King. And Mandala would have been with us but she went to feed our enemy."

"I fed my Queen the woman's lunch." Draco remembered. He sighed to himself in understanding. "Very well. Let's find her." He kissed his bondage ring and whispered into it.

Hermione struggled and struggled to be free of her ravisher. She kneed him in the groin, pulled on his ears, and even slapped him until she got tired of it. Nothing worked. Her fight soon began to wear down and she had a hard time even concentrating on her goal. Just when her situation began to look hopeless a harsh voice whispered inside her mind. This annoying voice began repeating itself as she tried to focus in on it. It kept fading into the distance and coming back again persistently. It was telling her to, it was telling her to…oh, she didn't know. But she did know that she wanted to bite the man in the neck.

Hermione wiggled herself in the man's hold and, surprisingly enough, he thought she had a sudden change of mind and his hold on her slackened just a bit, his hands now roaming her body. It was enough. Hermione eased her way around to one side of him and then stared into his passion filled eyes. The man stood still and grinned at her. She grinned back. She reached her arms around her queen-napper and pressed close to him. She didn't know if she would even be able to pierce the creep considering the fact that vampires were supposed to be impenetrable, but she had this nagging feeling that it was the best thing in the world to do under the circumstances.

When the man leaned forward to kiss her, she kissed the butthead back to make him think that he had her total compliance. Then, as he let her have some more free room to explore him as he was exploring her, she eased her way around his beefy neck and stuck her fangs into his flesh. His flesh did not pierce, but some sort of venom shot from her teeth causing the little man to collapse onto the ground in a dead faint. Hermione did not waste time; she picked up her skirts and ran out of the cabin. Draco! He had to have been the one telling her how to stop the man. Being faced with those queasy feelings again told her all that she needed to know. Draco had been the one to make her attack her boss and Draco had been the one to tell her how to defend herself. The only thought on her mind now was 'thank God for that damned controlling ring'.

Hermione ran and ran until she needed to stop for breath. When running became too tiring and she felt safe for the time being, she started walking and looking at her surroundings. She was still deep in some kind of a forest. She continually had to step over fallen logs and make sure that she didn't trip on the mossy earth-ground. She was, of course, completely lost. Everywhere she looked there were trees. Hermione did a quick twirl-around and sighed. It was then that she remembered her savior. Maybe, she thought, if Draco could order her, then she could order him. It was a long shot, but considering that men in this world dominated their women, there was a chance that this damn ring had some kind of distress signal to call the tall, strong, and arrogant.

Hermione glanced at the ring's ruby incrusted frame and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Draco! I order you to come and get me." That sounded like living without gravity, totally impossible. The damned butthead probably made it so that only she was forced to take orders. She sat on a fat log and threatened, "If you don't come and get me then I will sit here for all eternity and sulk. Yeah, that's right. I will raise our baby right here and never move the entire time. And when the baby asks who his father is I am going to tell him that his father is the one who left us here." Satisfied with her threats Hermione made herself comfortable.

Standing on the other side of a bush across the way, a dark presence stared at his Queen. He had heard every word of what she had shouted into the looming night. Funny that. She actually thought that he would hear and obey her. He was just lucky that the woman had decided to shout her words instead of whisper them or it might have taken him hours to find her. After he had her safely behind the castle walls, he would assist his guards in showing her abductor no mercy.

He had his men searching miles for even the impossibility that she might have been taken outside the castle walls. It may have taken him a full day and night to find her on his own had she not demanded at the top of her lungs that he fetch her. Draco, at that moment, was grateful that he had the ring's power. Without it his Queen would have most likely been in a situation that he couldn't help her with. He silently laughed to himself on the thought that his Queen was probably as stubborn as he when it came to self-determinations. This meant that she would probably do just as she had said and sit on that log until it disintegrated enough to force her to find a new one. He looked at her pale face from his hidden spot. She looked tired and in desperate need of a bath. He watched as she fiddled with her ring and with a few leaves she'd picked up from the millions soon to be covered in snow and frost. She looked angelic. Draco stepped out from behind his haven and started walking toward her. He had no idea what he was going to say; he just felt this great urge to touch her.

The moment Hermione heard leaves crackle she jumped looking around herself worriedly for the possible threat. When she saw him she smiled. Without thought, Hermione ran to Draco on winged feet, just glad to be in his arms again. "What took you so long you arrogant butthead?" she whispered against his ear as she sniffed in his scent. Draco always smelled of spicy sandalwood. She wrapped her arms around his neck tightly, but squeezed gently.

"Had a hard time following a certain 'wife' of mine who had the bad taste to become easy prey."

"I love you Draco." She whispered.

Draco said nothing more, but picked her tired form up into his arms to carry her home. What she'd said scared the hell out of him. She couldn't love him because he refused to lose her. He had to make this right. Draco started planning. He would take care of her abductor and then he would take care of her love.

* * *

I would like to thank the following readers for reviewing my last chapter.

Sapphireuncovered0123

voldyismyfather

Lonely-Soul-Crying-Heart

StarrCrystal

TimeBringsTruth

I know that this chapter is short and has been a long time in coming, but that is what a lost muse and two jobs will do to me. If you like or even love this story, then please let me know by commenting. Comments are the only muse I need right now. The same goes for any of my other stories.


End file.
